


The Haunting of Steve Harrington’s House

by UrieNanashi



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Is Bad at Feelings, Canon-Typical Violence, Horror, Inspired by HiImMaryMary, Inspired by The Haunting of Hill House, Isolation, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Monsters, Mystery, Reality Bending, Slow Burn, Sort Of, Steve Harrington Needs a Hug, Steve Has Issues, Swearing, Timelines, Violence, attempts at, halloween fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-05
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:20:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 29,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26843536
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrieNanashi/pseuds/UrieNanashi
Summary: Outside, what little light the sun provided vanished over the horizon.Steve regulates his breathing as best he can. Tries to keep his grip on the bat secure but loose. Otherwise, experience has taught him that his fingers will ache very quickly. Another long night loomed before him.It’s quiet.He breathes.He does not let go of the bat. He does not grip it too tight either.The silence rings unpleasantly in his ears but it’s better than the alternative by far.--------------------------------------Steve Harrington has not left his house in a long, long time.
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 89
Kudos: 94





	1. (Post 1) Chapter 1

Something smacked the window across the room – _hard_. It shuddered from the impact but didn’t break. Normally he wouldn’t worry about that. He knew how hard the windows were to break. He had tested them extensively. But whatever this was had hit from the _outside_. From the other side of the glass.

Steve glanced quickly down at his laptop for the time but there was still a good half an hour before dusk according to the computer clock. He slid the laptop closed with a gentle tap.

Carefully, quietly, Steve approached the bedroom window and pushed the edge of the heavy drape back. There was nothing. It was just the same as it always was- the long stretch of green grass, the cracked driveway, the hazy near ever-present fog, the darkening sky, the looming forest. No one and nothing. Steve let the curtain fall back over the glass and stepped back, unsure if he was disappointed or not.

He was fairly sure that it hadn’t always been like this.

The longer time stretched the less sure he was of anything.

He shook his head. Steve turned back into the room and purposely pushed the incident from his mind for now- while Steve had most things puzzled out by now, weird random shit still happened frequently enough that it wasn’t _overly_ concerning. He ignores his racing heart and the heavy unease that sits in the pit of his stomach.

It was –fine.

Half an hour still to go. He could get ready early. No harm in that.

The bedroom door is closed and locked, then the heavy chest that used to sit at the end of the bed is pushed in front as well. Just in case. That done, he turned back to the room and tested one of the many lamps switches. He couldn’t deny the relief that flooded through him when the bulb flickered on. It was working tonight. A lucky break. Steve turned all the others on, grabbed the nail studded baseball bat from beside the bed and wedged himself into the corner of the room to sit. Back to the wall, bat held firm, he pulled a few of the many glowing lamps a little closer to him.

Outside, what little light the sun provided vanished over the horizon.

Steve regulates his breathing as best he can. Tries to keep his grip on the bat secure but loose. Otherwise, experience has taught him that his fingers will ache very quickly. Another long night loomed before him.

It’s quiet.

He breathes.

He does not let go of the bat. He does not grip it too tight either.

The silence rings unpleasantly in his ears but it’s better than the alternative by far.

He breathes. Quietly.

Hours into the night Steve adjusts his position against the wall again. His muscles ache. His eyes are burning. Slowly shadows begin to form as the sky outside the window lightens from the pitch inky blackness to a dull gray. It had been one of the blessedly peaceful night at least. Steve allow his grip on the bat to completely loosen. It falls to his side. Ignoring the cramps with practiced familiarity Steve forced himself to stand and begin the process of turning all the lamps off again.

He probably didn’t have to do that.

Turn them off.

Really, if he wanted, Steve could leave them on all day long. It was only long ingrained habit that made him do it – turn off lights when he left a room, put dishes in the sink, close the refrigerator firmly, hang up wet towels. None of it mattered really. He did it anyway. Most of the time.

Steve slowly pushed the heavy chest away from the door, unlocked the flimsy bolt, grabbed his laptop and his bat and carefully opened the bedroom door.

The second floor hallway was clear, looking as bland and ordinary as it always did. The frames of impersonal stock art hung on the walls, the carpet the same ugly beige color as always. He couldn’t stop himself from freezing in the doorway anyway, listening intently. After a few solid moments there was still nothing so Steve stepped out and headed for the long staircase.

The house is _silent_. No wind blowing against the house, no creaking of floorboards, no cars driving by outside. Just absolute silence, pressing in on him from all sides.

You’d think the eerie quiet would have stopped bothering him by now but turns out, no. It was still creepy as fuck to move through an entirely silent house.

Downstairs he made for the living room.

The windows were providing a surprising amount of light today. He couldn’t remember the last time it had been this bright outside actually. It had been a long, long time. Stirred by something almost nostalgic when he sat down on the large sofa, Steve pushed back the curtains to let in more of the dull light. For just a moment he pushed his head back against the cushions and turned his face towards the window. Closed his eyes. The light made the insides of his eyelids red and he could _almost_ feel the warmth of the sun.

He forced his heavy eyes back open before he could fall asleep. It would be incredibly stupid to sleep without an alarm set. And anyway he had stuff to do. Sort of. Bat beside him on the couch, Steve pulled the laptop onto the sofa arm and flipped up the screen. The empty generic desktop greeted him. He opened the internet with a lazy click. He checked his twitter first. Then YouTube. Then Facebook. Tumblr, Snap Chat, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reedit, Myspace, and on and on. All the usual. Steve opened a tab for a news site before realizing he definitely didn’t have the patience for that today and closed the window quickly before it could attempt to load.

God he was tired.

Steve stared vaguely at the blank screen of his laptop. He debates with himself. It was still early hours. He was tired and hungry. Slowly he pushed the laptop away. Food or sleep first? He really should have a solid routine by now but he really didn’t. Not for this very beginning part at least. Deciding today to eat before sleep, Steve got up and dragged himself and his bat to the kitchen.

It looked just as it always did.

Immaculate and cold.

All the heavy chairs of the dark wood table pushed neatly in. The stone counters free of any dust or crumbs. The blinds to the windows overlooking the backyard drawn tightly closed just as the ones covering the glass paneled backdoor were. 

Bat placed gently on the counter he opened one of the cupboards. Steve stared into the cabinet and tried to find his appetite. His eyes fell on the large unopened box on the top left. The idea of more cereal made his stomach fucking turn. Reaching a hand up, he uselessly pushed around the cans and boxes as if something new might appear. It didn’t. With a glare he grabbed the box of cereal, tore the top open, ripped into the plastic, and snatched a handful. He stuffed it into his mouth trying not to taste it. Steve swallowed a few dry bites and left the open box on the counter out of spite. Snatching his bat back up, he went back into the living room.

He fell back onto the couch in a graceless flop barely missing his laptop by an inch.

Steve opened it back up and set 11 different alarms, all set five minutes apart. He had gotten better at sleeping lightly but he was not about to risk over sleeping. He just needed- just a quick nap. A few hours. That’s all. His eyes slid shut, too heavy to keep open anymore. The red behind his eyes comforting.

A shrill sound woke him dutifully 4 hours later. He blinked and looked at his laptop. He’s woken on the first alarm. Good. An hour and a bit before noon. Steve debated whether it was worth getting up to shower and change. He hadn’t showered yesterday. So he should go do it today.

But he really didn’t want to.

He compromises with himself- After turning off the unnecessary extra alarms he heads for the half bath by the kitchen. He keeps his eyes closed when he enters. The layout had been memorized long ago and his hands find the rim of the sink. The bat rests against his leg so he can feel its comforting weight. Quickly he wipes his face and neck and arms with a damp hand towel. It wasn’t really ‘clean’ but he felt a little better stepping back out the bathroom. With a sigh he shut the door firmly behind him and opened his eyes again.

He stood there for a moment.

It was so quiet.

The cool water had woken him up a bit and he was feeling more alert. Steve starts his usual routine with a strange weight to his steps.

He goes to the front door and tries the handle. It’s locked.

He goes to the backdoor and tries the handle. It’s locked.

He goes to the garage door and tries the handle. It’s locked.

He goes to the basement door and carefully tries the handle. It’s locked.

He checks all the windows on the first floor. All locked.

He picks up the phone in the kitchen. Usual.

He checks lamp positions. Tests every bulb.

All that done Steve sat himself back down on the couch in the living room. It’s a vicious cycle he knows. He can’t help it. If he stops now, what if that’s the time something changes? The one time he doesn’t check. That’s when it will happen. So Steve can’t stop. He has to keep checking. Everyday.

Steve stopped bouncing his leg. He didn’t know when he had started.

He has 4 hours to kill now.

He was so goddamned tired. It was too late in the day to risk sleeping now though. With his luck he would sleep right through an alarm. The glow from the window was slowly fading to a darker, duller gray. When he closed his eyes now there was only the faintest hint of red. The black nearly swallowing it whole.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An attempt at something- different. Please be gentle with me, this is my first time writing in both this genre and in this Fandom. The entire thing is already writen and will be updated pretty much daily. If I have timed it right it should complete on Halloween. I hope you enjoy...leave a comment or a kudos? I'm pretty nervous about posting this one. Thank you and hope you all are staying safe.


	2. (Post 2) Chapter 2

Steve was fairly sure that this was not _actually_ his house.

He’d walked every inch of it a hundred times over by now and something about it was _wrong_. He just couldn’t precisely determine what it was that made him so sure. The carpet the right ugly color. The layout feels familiar. Every plate, and candle, and book, and pillow. It’s all the same. But it’s wrong. He just knows. Feels it.

It’s not his house.

Furthermore he is sure that he had not always been stuck inside this house. He is sure that at some point he had been outside. Seen other people. Talked to them. It’s all fuzzy now. It feels like so very fucking long ago. Specifics are impossible to recall but there _had_ been something before this. He doesn’t really remember how he ended up here either- in this wrong house with unbreakable windows, unopenable doors, and – well. _Them_.

It’s been getting steadily worse too.

At least, it feels like it has. He tries very hard not to think about it too much.

(They are bound to catch him at some point. Steve is just not that smart and at some point he is going to fuck up again.)

Steve eats cereal. Steve sleeps. Wakes up to an alarm. Sits around the house. Tried the doors. Tries the windows. Locks himself in the master bedroom and clutches his bat. Then he eats cereal. Sleeps. Wakes up to an alarm. Flicks through social media. Tries the doors. Tries the windows. Locks the bedroom and turns on all the lamps. Then he eats cereal. Sleeps. Wakes up to an alarm. 

Every now and then, less frequently then he checks everything less, Steve double checks the basement door.

Laying on the bed and staring at the ceiling has become something of a popular pastime for him. He has been hanging in the bedroom today rather than the living room. Had to switch it up or whatever. Briefly Steve rests a hand on his bat, just to be sure it was still there. It was, of course. Wearily he pulled his laptop over to him and rolls onto his side. He logs into his twitter and stares at the endless row of unanswered tweets. He switched to YouTube. Nothing there but his own short videos. He hadn’t made any in months. No comments. No views. No other channels. It’s the same on every website. Just a void Steve can scream into but no one else sees. He’s not sure really why he bothers. The thin desperate hope that someone will appear? That someone will see or hear him?

He flops back and goes returns to staring at the ceiling for a while longer.

It seems he has finally become bored enough to miss even his poor attempts at journaling. Attempting videos had been fun for a while but they were way too much fucking work when no one else was watching them. Journaling had been easy. Easier anyway. Writing had never been one of his strengths but it hadn’t been as frustrating as his short lived attempts at drawing. If it had been an option he might have even given reading another shot. He wasn’t that far gone yet though.

Eventually Steve leaves his laptop upstairs and goes to get dinner. Or breakfast if you order meals by when he wakes up instead of what time it was outside. 

Dinner was, surprise, more cereal.

Steve had cooked things for a while but the kitchen had few ingredients and it just- seemed like so much _effort_. If he could have maybe he would have done the thing where you make way too much of something and save the left overs so you don’t have to cook the next few meals but anything he made was gone by morning so- Mostly he lived on dry, plain, cereal.

He didn’t like spending too much time in the kitchen anyway.

A few mouthful of dry cereal quickly swallowed, Steve went backup stairs. He stares at his laptop. Checks all his social media accounts again as if something might have appeared in the 10 minuets since he last looked. Nothing. He swallowed back the urge to scream again.

Steve glanced at the time.

He fiddles with his bat absentmindedly.

With a sigh he brought up the home page of google and began randomly typing in letters and hitting search. This was his go to way for finding new social media sites. He hadn’t been able to remember any of the sites names on his own but they were usually the first thing to pop up in google searches. Then he joined them and added them to his ever growing list of pointless things to check. (Steve does his best to forget the times he’d been desperate enough to try joining sites with names like PornHub. He doesn’t always remember what the sites he joined were supposed to be for but that one had been pretty clear. The embarrassment had only been tempered by the disappointment when he discovered the site as barren as everything else he’d looked at.)

Steve blinked.

‘Did you mean: AO3- Archive of Our Own’

That wasn’t one didn’t ring any bells.

He clicked on the link with vague curiosity. The page was blank except for a red bar across the top with some links and a weird logo in the corner. Still, he clicks over to the ‘sign up’ button and types in the requested information mindlessly. Then he went over to his email account and waited for the confirmation.

Steve sets up his account when the acceptance finally arrives.

‘I’m Steve.’ His profile read.

‘I joined on: 1983-11-12’

This was another one of those sites that Steve wasn’t really sure the purpose of. He clicked around on the links. ‘Fandoms’ ‘browse’ ‘search ‘about’ all led to blank pages but there was a little ‘post’ button up at the top that led him to some kind of description list. Something to do with writing? Interest peaked, he scrolled down the weird list and found a large box for text sitting innocently at the bottom.

He’s never been an elegant writer. There was a reason his English grades had always been trash. But he had missed journaling and if nothing else it was an opportunity to just get his thoughts _out_. No one was likely to see it anyway. He tries to post the quick blurb but found it apparently needed a title so he called it ‘Seriously Please Answer’ and posted it without ‘previewing’ or whatever. Then he slammed the laptop closed and tried to swallow a sob.

What the fuck did he think was going to happen?

Steve grabbed his bat and tapped it against his leg. The nails dug gently into his skin. Almost enough to break the skin. Hovering just on the edge. He turned and marched from the room.

Tried the doors. Tries the windows. Locks himself in the master bedroom and clutches his bat. Then he eats cereal. Sleeps. Wakes up to an alarm. Flicks through social media (except for the new one. His stomach gets slightly nauseous thinking about it. Didn’t know what he would do if he looked and it was just as blank as everything else he had fucking tried). Tried the doors. Tries the windows. Locked the bedroom and turned on all the lamps. Then he eats cereal. Sleeps. Wakes up to an alarm. Flicks through social media. Tried the doors. Tries the windows. Locks the bedroom and turns on all the lamps. Then he eats cereal. Sleeps. Wakes up to an alarm. 

Steve stares blindly out on the living room windows for a while, out into the gloom. Darker and darker all the time. (They are going to find him. It’s inevitable. They’re going to catch him. And he doesn’t- doesn’t want to fucking see them.) His fingers clenched around his bat. Even as his eyes water he finds he is suddenly angry. No, his chest heaved, he is fucking furious. He fucking hated this. Hated everything.

A scream of rage tore uncontrollably from his throat as he swung the nailed bat as hard as he could at the window. The sharp nails caught and ripped the curtains and he could feel the feedback from the swing carry up his arms. He sung again at the glass. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again.

Steve dropped the bat to the floor where it dug itself into the carpet. It didn’t matter.

Tattered curtains hung limply in shreds but the glass beyond was as smooth and clear as it had ever been. Not broken. Not a crack. Not so much as a fucking scratch.

It didn’t matter either.

Gripping and ripping at his hair in frustration, Steve screamed again just to hear his own fucking voice. It rang through the empty house. He screamed to hear a voice. Any voice. He couldn’t remember ever having heard anyone else’s. He screams until he sobs. He didn’t know how much longer he could survive being fucking trapped here.


	3. (Post 3) Seriously Please Answer

I dont really know why im ddoing this. Youd think id have learned my lesson by now. No one is going to see this. I’ve pretty much given up trying to figure out what the fuck is going on

– all Im asking is for someone to answer me if they can see this. Seriously. Please. If anyone is out there please answer me


	4. (Post 4) Chapter 3

When Steve wakes the windows are so dark that a jolt of terror strikes through him. He scrambled upright, pushed the laptop open and ran a finger impatiently across the track pad. His heart was pounding but when the sleep screen finally lit it showed the time was only 1:30 in the afternoon. Later then he usually slept but still well before danger.Unsettled by the darker than normal sky he went to check the doors and windows. Everything was locked as usual. It was just unusually dark outside.

It’s – fine. All fine.

He stands in the living room and looks out the window. His eyes scan the yard but there’s nothing. Dark twitches in the corner of his eye and almost makes to spin away but it’s just a shadow from a tree outside. It’s nothing. The problem isn’t out there anyway, it’s in the house. He know. He knows.

But it’s fine.

Just a normal shadow.

Nothing to worry about.

Steve brings the laptop downstairs with him, rested his bat by his side, and sits down in the living room with all the lights on. Unease sat heavy with him. Taking a forcefully steadying breath Steve checked his twitter. Then YouTube. Then Facebook. Snap Chat, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, Reedit, Myspace, Tumblr. All as blank as they ever were.

He can hear deep laughter in his ear. Echoing.

God he was going fucking crazy. So fucking stupid.

 _You’re an idiot, Steve Harrington_.

Steve pulled up the fucking AO4 or whatever site. He needs to bite the bullet and get the disappointment over with. 

He stared. There was a comment. A fucking response- there were two fucking responses! From two different people. People who were not him. Someone, multiple people, had actually seen his shitty post thing and answered back. One of them is just one word, 'kudos' and he doesn't- he doesn't know what that means but he doesn't care. His hands are shaking. He brings up a new chapter or whatever and types so quickly hi fingers trip over themselves but he doesn’t care. He just posts it and waits on baited breath. He refreshes the page. Then again. Nothing comes in. Doesn’t mean it won’t, he tells himself. Jesus. His heart is pounding. His hands are shaking. He stares at the comments on his post again and pushes back from his computer with a frown. The other comment- it seemed happy? And it- it included his name? Maybe they got it from his profile? That had to be it. Steve took a breath. At least they wanted to know what was going on. At least there was someone out there. That was more then he'd had in a long time. Steve refreshes the page of his new post but no new comments suddenly appear. His stomach grumbles unhappily. Suddenly he’s fucking starving.

When another refresh of the page yields no results, Steve reluctantly pulls away from the laptop and stands. He doesn’t close it though. Doesn’t want to have to turn it back on. He’ll just run to the kitchen and get food. He brings the laptop upstairs first, to the safe room where he might be able to check it during the night, then he goes to the kitchen with a giddy bounce in his step. 

Someone answered him.

Steve almost walks into a wall at the thought.

Someone fucking answered him.

There _were_ other _people_ out there somewhere.

The kitchen is clean and bland as ever. Standing still at the entrance he decides he can’t do another fucking night of cereal. He deserves a celebratory dinner. Actual food. He pulls out a box of spaghetti and tossed it in a pot. There was no pasta sauce or even butter in the house. Steve had checked many, many times over, but even plain it would be better than the cereal. The large bowl goes quickly and Steve treats himself to seconds.And, he notes as he washes the pot, it _had_ to have been enough time for someone to have commented by now. Jittery excitement made him tingle has he dumped his bowl into the dishwasher.

Then his eye catches something unnaturally **dark** looming in the very corner of his vision.

Immediately Steve turns his face away and snaps his eyes shut even as the cold burning feeling shoots through his chest. It was like being dunked in ice water and it’s so cold it hurts. Panic wells up in his chest.

Look.

His whole body _shivers_.

It must be past 5 some part of him registered with gut wrenching dread. Steve tried to breathe but found that that was suddenly an incredibly difficult task.

Fuck. _Fuck_.

Look.

He could feel his eyes sting and water and bit at his lip hard to try and push the feeling away. He won’t look at it. He won’t. He _wasn’t_ going to get caught in it this time.

He needed to leave before anything else showed up.

With great effort Steve forced himself to move away from the thing. Made his feet move towards the stairs. He needed to get to the safe room. Close the door, turn on the lights. It would be okay. The bat. He adjusts his grip on it. Steve still has his bat. He’s not defenseless. It’s fine. It’s still fine. He knows without looking that the thing is following him. Walking backwards in that fucking creepy way. It never shows Steve its face. But Steve wasn’t going to look at it. He wasn’t.

He hurries up the stairs.

Scrambles frantically to get away before he gets caught in it.

The second floor hallway looks as normal as ever. Steve slams open the master bedroom door and closes it firmly without looking back.

But the room he has entered is already occupied. Another one has already gotten in. The small child sized figure crawls up the far side of the bed and pants audibly. Steve stares at it. It has no feet. Just arms. Many thin, almost skeletal, arms and hands. Spider-like except not all of the appendages seemed to be used to move. Some of the arms stick up at odd angles and flail. The fingers on its rows of hands twitch and spams like dying insects. It’s bright white. Not pale, like human flesh, but pure absolute white. It has no eyes. No nose. Just an unnaturally large mouth that hangs slightly open while the thing sucks in air noisily, gasping and panting faster and faster and faster.

Steve’s heart is pounding painfully. Cold sweat is forming on his brow. He knows what is coming. He knows what it’s about to do.

His bat.

He should- he should hit it. Hit it. Hit it. Hit it.

Kill it.

But he can’t get a good grip on his bat. He can’t breathe.

Then the thing opens its unnaturally wide mouth, unhinging half of its head to expose a black throat and teeth and it _screamed_.

Steve drops the bat to cover his ears.

He can’t catch his breath and a wave of absolute despair floods over him. _Shut up_ , he wants to yell back but he can’t find his voice. _Shut up_ , _Shut up_ , **_Shut up_**! His body was sliding down the side of the wall. The screaming so loud it drowned out everything else. It hurts. He can’t support his own weight. Everything is ruined now. He can’t breathe. He can feel himself shaking, jerking, and twitching like that things fucking fingers. It screams on without pause, needing no breath. His eyes water in agony. He lifts his head and slams it down against the floor. Hard. Once. Twice. Then it all goes blissfully black.


	5. (Post 5) Can People Really See this?

So it looks like you guys might actually be able to fucking see this!? Unless Ive really finally fucking snapped.Or it was a fluke or some crap? My name is Steve Harrington and Ive been trapped in this house for fuckign ever and I think Im going crazy and I cant leave and no one has ever replied to me on any site ive tried before. Ever. Is it like that for everyone? I didn’t think anyone would ever see anything I posted. I don’t even know what this site is really for. If you guys can still see this please please let me know. Leave a comment or whatever.


	6. (Post 6) Chapter 4

He’d been outside, he remembered.

He’d been alone. With other people.

It had been dark but not scary and there had been shrieks and screams and laughter but none of it like anything Steve experienced hearing in the house. The sounds didn’t frightened him. A soft presence sits beside him. He had been entirely alone.

Nellie.

Pleasant warmth filled him. He felt full and comfortable. Everything sort of slow and drowsy. Excitement and fear. Then, a silence thick with anticipation- Falling. Icey cold stinging pain. Fingers desperately trying to catch onto anything. Panic. Flailing. Screams. These ones of horror. Terror. These are more familiar sounds.

Slick heat that left him cold and sick.

Burning, stinging, awful pain.

He couldn’t breathe.

Nellie.

The world was whirling around him.

He couldn’t find up.

Nancy.

Something digging into his skin excruciatingly as he kicked desperately. His heart pounding. Reeling. Spinning. _Which way was up?_ Screaming cuts off. He can’t _breathe_ but his fingertips brush the edge of something and he frantically grasped on to whatever it was with all his strength. His arms shake and strain. Deep, incredible pain. He pulls up. He has to. Has to get away. He kicks blindly again and again and again and finally hits something.

Nancy.

Gasping. Panting. Breathing in thick unnatural air.

So cold. Freezing.

Nancy.

Then, just the house. The pristine wooden floor of the kitchen. The quiet so loud it echoes. The heavy curtains closed over the glass sliding backdoor. Steve stands before himself. He grins. He starts talking but Steve can’t hear him. Can’t hear the other him. The sound muffled, f a r a w a y, rising until it broke surface and he could hear himself say, “You **_want_** to. I know.” Laughter echoes. Then screaming begins again. The thing. White and pale. Its arms twitch and shiver. It seems to smile. It screams. He falls downward.

Steve stands in the dark.

A **v o i d**.

Endless **black** that stretches on in every direction. He feels eyes on him. He runs aimlessly in the dark. There is no noise. Not even his own breath. He runs and runs and runs. Something is looking for him. Searching. He hears no voice but he knows it’s calling his name. Run and _run_ and r u n.

Something is behind him.

No. No. No. No. No.

Steve startled awake on the floor with a scream caught in his throat.

His head was pounding and he felt awful. Shaky and vaguely ill. Nauseous. He wonders how much of it was from bashing his head against the floor. His body flopped around, trying to figure out how to get back on his feet. He had no idea what time it was. After a while he manages to pull himself up to stand. His bat had rolled a few feet away from him at some point. Ignoring the vertigo that came from bending over, Steve snatched the thing back up quickly.

The room looked empty.

The white thing was gone. Fucking spider thing. Hopefully that meant it was day time.

Steve tried one of the lamps. The twist clicked but the bulb remained dark. He resisted the urge to smash the thing into the floor in frustration. Unlike the windows, bulbs he actually could permanently break. He tried another one just to be sure but it too remained dark. All of these lamps would be useless for tonight.

Then he spotted his laptop.

It sat still on the desk where he’d placed it last night before leaving to get food. He felt his shoulders droop in disappointment and his eyes burn. It wasn’t worth opening to check, he knew it wouldn’t be working now either. He ground his teeth together, swallowed and turned away.

He would need to find another place to fortify he realized as he descended the stairs, at least temporarily until the effects of that scream had worn off.

Steve checks the time on the digital clock in the kitchen without glancing at the curtains hiding the backdoor. It was already almost 11. No sleep for him today. Check the locks, prepare for the coming night. That’s what he needs to do. Steve shakes his head to clear his thoughts but only succeeded in making his head pound.

So Steve goes to the front door and tries the handle. It’s locked.

He goes to the backdoor and tries the handle. It’s locked.

He goes to the garage door and tries the handle. It’s locked.

He checks all the windows on the first floor. All locked.

Though his swollen throat protests, Steve forced handfuls of dry cereal down. He had to clamp a hand over his mouth to keep from chucking it all up again. A glass of water looked just as unappealing as the food but he forced that down too.

With a sigh he spins around the empty room and contemplates what he should do now.

In the back of a shelf in the living room, Steve pulls out a deck of cards. With one person he’s pretty limited in game choices but he plays a few rounds of solitaire. Then a round of war, doing both sides himself, because that game takes forever and also requires absolutely no thinking.

His left ear was ringing. He fucking hated when that happened. 

The two stack of cards rose and fell. He flipped cards lazily. Again and again. God he was tired. Steve flopped down on the carpet and sighed. He rubbed at his ear. How long had he been stuck in this house? Maybe he should have been counting. Would tick marks stick between cycles – days - whatever? He eyed the wall and window that had taken the brunt of his freak out a few days back. The clean crisp curtains perfectly intact. No sign of the ripping or damage he had managed to inflict.

It took Steve a moment to realize the ringing in his ear had turned to laughter – and it wasn’t just in his head anymore.

Steve sat up, disregarding the deck of cards, and scanned his eyes around. Nothing. But just because he didn’t see her didn’t mean she wasn’t there. The deep toned laughter reverberated around him. Steve slapped his hands over his ears and scowled, “I wasn’t even reading!”

The laughter grew more hysterical. Like that was the funniest fucking thing they had ever heard. 

“Fuck off!” Steve hissed.

He was ignored.

Leaving the mess of cards on the floor, Steve stomped away from the room with his hands still over his ears, his bat clenched under his armpit by the handle. The laughter followed him, growing louder. Hurrying into the kitchen Steve began to open and slam the cabinets closed. It didn’t do much to muffle the sound. “La la la la la, fuck you!” He yelled spinning around to glare at the walls. Steve groaned in frustration as the laughter rose above the sound. He slammed a cabinet closed harder. The silverware inside jingled. The voice morphs, becoming a blend – the deep baritone sound joining with a cacophony of others. 

Steve abandons the kitchen and runs upstairs. He’s half way into his usual shelter before he remembers it’s been compromised. He spins on his heal, hands back over his ears and pushes into the guest bedroom. It has less lamps then he usually likes but at least these ones were working.

He surveyed the room quickly before locking the door this time.

Lock secured he took a closer look around, nothing presented itself as an obvious object to help barricade the door so instead he turns on all the lights, crawls into the bed and tries to drown out the laughter with pillows. The bat rests beside him, its familiar poking and scratching at his skin reassuring. He was fine. The laughter would leave eventually. He was safe in here. He was fine. He just had to ride it out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone again for the comments and kudos.They really mean a lot to me. Up next time, we finally get some Billy.


	7. (Post 7) Chapter 5

Billy misses the ocean so bad it aches like a fresh broken bone. He’s had plenty of those over the years and knows just how they feel, the sharp constant stabbing pain that freezes you and punches the air right out of your lungs- it feels just like that in his chest. Hurts so damn bad he wonders if his dad hadn’t actually managed to bruise one of his ribs or something. He misses the sun, the warmth, the boardwalks and streets full of people. A crowd to disappear into. He doesn’t miss Connor. Fuck Connor. Billy didn’t need any of that shit. More than anything though, Billy is fucking pissed at Max. Her and her fucking fat mouth that landed him here in this crap hole.

He hasn’t been here more than a few days and Billy already hates fucking Hawkins.

He hates the whole of Indiana really but Hawkins exemplifies everything he hates about the state in one convenient package. It smells like literal cow shit for one, and there was nothing around it for miles. Nothing _in_ it either except an old ass diner and a rundown arcade Max flips her shit for like it could possibly make up for how shitty the entire town was. There was more happening on any one street back in Cali then the entirety of this shithole state.

Hawkins high school, when Billy pulls up to it, looks just as shitty as the rest of the town. Fucking tiny too. Billy was no stranger to switching schools. He’d been to three different ones back in California but this one would definitely be the smallest he has ever attended. For a moment he sits in his car and watches people pass, they flocking slowly towards the building as first period drew closer. Billy took a drag on his cigarette. Tapped his fingers on the Camaro’s steering wheel, trying to build up the mental energy to plunge himself into this fucking bullshit for the day. He’d be eighteen soon. Just had to make it till then. He blew out a mouth full of smoke.

Stepping out he snuffed the burning filter beneath his boot. He could feel the eyes on him already. New kid in this tiny ass town had to have them all creaming their pants in excitement. Whatever. Billy was going to be running this shit school by the end of the day.

He strolls into the building with easy confidence in his steps. Shoots a smirk at a group of girls eyeing him curiously. Their gaze lingers as he passes them by. The secretary was a fucking cow but Billy gives his best charming smile and gets his locker number and schedule without issue.

The day goes mostly how he suspected it would.

Billy lays down the law quick, stakes his claim. Makes it clear that whatever was going on before Billy showed up, the rules have changed now. He shoves some jock out of his way and into a set of lockers first thing. A warning. All eyes are on him. Billy plays it up. He know he looks good. Grins and smiles at all the girls watching him. The guys start to flock to him too, eager to establish his favor. His classes are a joke, covering things he learned a year ago. He’s going to be bored out of his skull. Still, Billy is sure to smile at his teachers and put down a good first impression. It won’t be long before he inevitably misses a class and a teacher’s favor is always valuable.

It’s all so fucking easy. Weirdly easy and Billy has to bite back frustration. By lunch he has the whole school on edge- eating out of the palm of his fucking hand.

The frustration in his gut builds as the day creeps on until he’s damn near vibrating with it. No one offers him any kind of challenge. Billy just walks in and picks the crown of this high school up off the floor. It’s fucking _weird_. Something about it is wrong. It wasn’t until the end of the day, when he was back at his new locker, that he realized what it is.

From the position of his locker Billy has a clear view of two bulletin boards. Those things that were usually filled with all kinds of bullshit- fliers and notices and crap. But both of these were bare but for one paper, hung dead center of both.

Billy frowned, ignoring the suck-up trying to talk to him about the basketball team. He cast his mind around, trying to remember any other bulletin boards he passed by earlier- he thinks they too might have only had one single piece of paper on them, dead center like these ones but he hadn’t really been paying attention.

“I’m sure coach would make an exception.”

Jesus Christ, Timmy or whoever the fuck would just not shut up.

Billy slams his locker shut and purposely pushed the brown-noser out of his way hard enough to make him stumble. That shut him up.

As Billy draws closer to the board on his way towards the exit he slows his steps. Some prissy looking chick in a fucking pastel pink cardigan stands in front of the page. She needlessly straightens it, runs a soft hand over the photo like a freak. “Nancy?” A tall, equally prissy looking fat girl calls to the pastel chick. Clutching at her arm full of books Miss Prissy walked off towards her apparent friend.

Billy approaches slowly, ignoring the crowd rushing past him. It was just a photo and some large text. A photo of a boy. Dark brown hair purposely styled and pushed casually back. Dark jeans and the preppiest looking polo shirt. He’s leaning against a wall looking like he thinks he’s hot shit with a smirk on his face. Someone had drawn a crown around his head in pen. The poster read ‘MISSING- Steve Harrington’ in bold letters across the top. There was a phone number and something about a reward for information at the bottom. 

The paper’s old. The date the guy’s reported missing from last _year_.

But there the page still sits, undisturbed and alone in the middle of an otherwise blank cork-board. Billy thinks they can’t actually still be looking for the guy. More likely no one can bare to just tear it down. Like a memorial.

Probably got eaten by a bear or some shit.

Something nasty and mean rises up in him, something he doesn’t like to look to hard at, and he reaches out, grabs the poster by the bottom end and rips it down. A blank strip of white paper clings still to the board by the staples. The faded image of smiling King Steve crumples beneath his fingers before he drops it to the floor and strolls out of Hawkins High to his car.


	8. (Post 8) Chapter 6

It took hours for the laughter to fade. But it did. Eventually. It always did. Poking his head out from under the pillows and blankets he had piled over his head, Steve saw the blessedly lightening sky beyond the window. Thank fucking god. He clutched his bat in one arm as he crawled and pushed his way free of his cocoon.

It had to be past 5 AM by now.

His muscles ached as he made to stand. He was so fucking tired.

The door unlocked easily and he stepped out into the bland hallway.

His stomach clenched uncomfortably around the hopeful feeling in the pit of his stomach as a though hit him. The laptop. It might be working again now. The carpet was soft beneath his feet. The master bedroom looked just the way he left it. The many lamps all dark and on the desk, his lap top. He approached slowly.

Clenched Steve gently pressed down on the laptops power button. After a moment the little blue light lit and he sagged down into the desk chair in relief. It worked. It fucking worked.

Once the desktop loaded Steve clicked the internet browser impatiently. Someone _had_ to have replied by now- He wasted no time with any of the other sites, just went straight to AO3 praying someone had written something. That someone had read, could _see_ , that he was here.

Nothing.

Crushing disappointment.

Steve closes the laptop and heads downstairs to the kitchen. He eats a few handfuls of cereal. Then he goes upstairs again and crawls under covers. He sets a few alarms then raises the blanket over his head and will himself to sleep.

Steve sneaks quietly up behind her while she puts away her books- then pounces. He wraps his arms around her and lifts her up. She weighs almost nothing to him, tiny and light. She startles with a high pitched laugh, “Oh my god Steve! Put me down!” He does so, after a moment, spins and lowers her carefully to her feet. She shoves his shoulder and he can’t fight the grin on his face. She closes her locker, shaking her head. “So I’ll see you tonight?” She asks with a glance. She shoots a playful glare when she catches the look on his face, “To. Stu-dy?” she emphasizes.

“Yeah.” He grins and means it. _Nancy_. She’s so beautiful. He’s not sure what help someone like him will really be to her but any excuse to spend time with her is one he’s going to jump at. He knows how lucky he is.

“Steve!” A voice calls from behind.

“Steve!”

Steve spins around and carefully tugs on the bottom of his sweater vest.

“We’re about to start! Ms. Hashmer is looking for you!”

Steve smiled and hoped it doesn’t look too much like a grimace. Like he hadn’t been really hoping no one would notice his absence. “Oh- yeah. Uh- Coming!”

Dragging his feet all the way into the auditorium Steve resisted the urge to fiddle with his tie. No matter what he did he always felt like it was choking him. His blazer always uncomfortably hot. too. Rows of students loom before him. Looking around briefly for an empty spot he couldn't help but notice a conspicuous absence. Nellie. He took a seat on the end of the stands in uncomfortable silence, feeling the eyes of his classmates on him. He hated this school. He slunk down as best he could. Further and further until he falls right through the floor.

Steve is back in the void.

The endless black.

He is alone.

He turns and his eyes struggle to make sense of the nothing that stretches on before him. It makes him feel vaguely sick and his head ache. Like vertigo or something. Feels like he could lay down and he would still be standing up. Like there is nothing beneath his feet at all.

He is afraid to move. Afraid he might suddenly begin to fall through the nothingness. Fall forever. Steve wasn’t book smart but he felt like, if space was anything like this, astronauts had to have fucking balls of steel.

There’s a coppery taste on his tongue.

Someone is behind him now. He can feel it. His whole body shudders. He wants to run but he doesn’t dare try and move out into the nothingness. Echoing footsteps approach behind him and he feels his ears twitch in response to the sound.

A voice or an echo- “Steve?” He thinks he hears himself say.

He starts to fall-

-And he crashes. Jerking his face back from scratchy carpet Steve tried to untangle his limbs. The shrill ringing of an alarm is blaring. He’d fallen off the bed. “Ugh.” He’s drenched in sweat and feels unpleasantly sticky. Crawling out of the tangled mess of blankets he managed to right himself and turn off the alarm. He yawned with a stretch. What a weird fucking dream.

Dragging both the laptop and his bat with him, Steve completes his customary check of the doors and windows. It’s a fucking shock but nothing has changed since the last 5 billion times he’d tried them. Whatever. Task complete Steve grimaced at the damp shirt clinging to his chest.

He hasn’t showered in a few days and as he runs a hand through his hair he can feel the oil. He really wants to get back on the laptop but he feels wicked gross. Probably time to stop avoiding the inevitable.

Steve grabbed a fresh set of clothes and hauled them and his bat over to the master bathroom. The door swung open with a push and Steve kept his eyes over to the left as he flicked the lights on. He felt his skin prickle. He stripped quickly and plunged into the shower before the water had a chance to heat. His bat rests inside the shower with him. He scrubs quickly. Shampoos his hair roughly. Ignores the flash of panic that clawed at him when he dunks his head under the spray.

He shuts the water off and keeps his bat with him as he steps out and runs a towel so hurriedly over himself it probably wasn’t worth the effort. His clothes cling to damp skin as he pulls them on but at least he’s clean now. Steve leaves the bathroom quickly and slams the door shut behind him.

He runs a hand over his face and breaths out through his mouth. Annoyed with himself Steve marched downstairs and flopped back on the living room couch and opened up the laptop.

He logs in to ao3.


	9. (Post 9) Are you still there?

So it turns out you guys actually can see this still- a comment showed up. Have an awful headache today. Sorry it took me a while to post anything. I couldnt remember how to logon to the laptop for awhile and then when I did I saw the comment. Sometimes things get confusing here but it hasn’t been that bad in a long time. So yeah. Sorry.

Im not really great at explaining crap but ill give it a shot. Don’t have anything better to do anyway.

I’m trapped in this house with monsters. I don’t know if youll believe that but don’t think I care. Theres 5 of them. Or at least there are 5 that ive met. Some of them I see more often then others. Not sure why.

So in no particular order, here I go-

Shadow Man- I see this one a lot. Its like a shadow but made real? It shows up and follows me around. Standing in doorways or whatever trying to get me to look at it. it walks backwards. Never seen its face.

Flower Dog- don’t see this one too often anymore but it looks like a dog kind of. Except its head kind of peels open like a flower and the insides are covered with teeth.

White Spider- this is the hardest one to describe- its like the size of a small child but made up of just a torso and lots of thin arms. It kind of has a head but no like eyes or nose or whatever. Just a huge fucking mouth. It scream is really fucking loud and what ever is near it while it screams stops working for awhile afterword.

Molly- shes the only one who has ever interacted with me during daylight hours. Shes like a really creepy tall thin lady but her laugh sounds like a mans most of the time. I fucking hate her laugh.She sows up mostly when im in the middle of doing something. Ive tried ignoring her but if I do that long enough and don’t stop whatever I was doing she gets really pissed and starts breaking stuff.

The last one- I don’t really want to talk about him. im not sure why this one scares me more then all the others. 


	10. (Post 10) Nancy or Nellie

Oh- there are three of you now. hi.

it feels weird to talk to people. thanks for saying such nice things tho. I feel like things here have been slowly etting worse but it's hard to say. may be it just feels that way. last night was rough, none of the lamps worked. I spent 11 hours under the bed listening to those things moving around the house. It sucked. A lot. Sometimes I wonder what life was like before I was stuck in here. When I think about it too hard the headaches get worse.

Am I not supposed to be using AO3 for updates? What is this site even for? Most of the time I don't remember site names unless I search them but usually when I click on one I rremembr what its for. I just figured this was a writing site? Do people not journal on here? Guess it doesn't matter too muh. No other site has ever had people respond to me before so I'm not going anywhere unless you all prove to a a hallicination or a new way to torment me.

In other news I think I remembered something from before.

Nancy. I think I knew her. A girl named Nancy.

I think. Maybe it was Nellie? It definelty started with an N.

Nancy. Nellie. Both of their names give me headaches so I think one or the other might be real.

Or Maybe im just crazy.

Sometimes I don’t feel real.

Wonder if any of you guys are real.


	11. (Post 11) Chapter 7

The computer screen was beginning to make his eyes burn. Blinking furiously Steve swallowed the that spoon full of cereal. The kitchen quiet around him as it always way, slowly growing darker, but the laptop provided a comforting glow. The comments he had been getting on AO3 had inspired him to try posting again on other sites but they all remain blank. He’s still not sure he believes the comments he’s received are from real people. On the other hand they’ve been so nice it’s hard to imagine they are a product of the house he’s stuck in. The only one of the monsters that ever really talks to him- well, they don’t say things like that.

Steve frowned and ran a hand through his slightly greasy hair, considering.

The comments all seem to think Nancy is real, although why they think that he isn’t sure. All he has are his nightmarish dreams and what he’s told them isn’t exactly concrete either way.

Steve’s memories are full of holes. More holes the memory even. Sometimes he wakes up and completely forgets how to use the computer, or even what it does on particularly bad days. And then some days the frustration that the internet is so blank makes him almost want to scream. Sometimes he thinks the phone in the kitchen with its curling cord is the most natural thing in the world. Other times it couldn’t feel more wrong. But honestly, the more vivid his dreams become the more he feels sure that both Nellie and Nancy had been, were, real. God his head ached. Thinking about them _together_ at the same time almost always had that effect. Like they were meant to remain separate from one another. 

Steve washed the empty cereal bowl and put it in the sink to dry, perfectly aware that when he came downstairs in the morning it would be back in the cabinet where it always was. Steve glanced at the clock, 4:36 PM. Time to get upstairs and secure the room for the night.

Grabbing his bat he turned to head for the stairs when a piercing sound cut through the air. Steve whirled around, bat at the ready. It’s too early, he thought desperately, they shouldn’t be out already. It was too early. Eyes running over the room in search of the source of the sound, Steve’s his heart pounded in his chest. Was it an alarm he’d forgotten to turn off? And then he realized – it was the phone.

The _phone_ was ringing.

He lowered his bat slowly in stunned disbelief feeling like he’d taken a blow to the head. The sound was loud and jarring. It echoed through the whole house while Steve stood there and stared at the ringing phone. Although he wasn’t able to recall ever having specifically heard a phone ring before the sound was hauntingly familiar. It was ringing. Ringing. Ringing. The phone fell silent and Steve felt a devastating sense of loss crash over him from where he stood frozen. Why had he just stood there looking at the thing like an idiot? Why hadn’t he picked it up? The phone let out a shrill sound again and Steve jumped in shock.

This time he hurried forward, snatched the phone off the wall, and pressed it painfully hard to his cheek before he could think. The cord was all tangled so he had to stand awkwardly close to the receiver. His mouth had gone dry. What should he say? Who was on the other end?

“Max?!” A voice from the receiver yelled. Tears immediately swelled in Steve’s eyes and he had to blink to push them away. It was a _voice_. There was a fucking _person_ on the other end of the phone. He couldn’t remember _ever_ having heard another person’s voice before either although he knows he must have. High pitched and sort of breathless- frantic and panicked. “Max!?” The voice yelled desperately again.

Steve tried to breathe but found his lungs weren’t cooperating. He tried to lick his lips but there was no saliva left in his mouth. “I’m Steve.” He replied in a hoarse whisper like an idiot. A steam of curses came out of the phone then a deafening click and the dead silence Steve had become used to every time he had ever checked the phone previously. There was no dial tone. Still blinking rapidly to push back tears, Steve put the phone back on the hook with a shaking hand.

He stares at it. Wills it to ring again. But it sits just as lifeless as it ever did on its receiver and Steve wonders if he had just imagined that whole thing happening. He backs away slowly as if it might ring again as he leaves.

It doesn’t.

Steve keeps a sharp ear out for the sound all night long.

It doesn’t ring again.

The rest of the cycle passes in a haze.

After checking the doors the next day, Steve went back to the kitchen, laptop and bat in hand. The phone hung innocently on the wall. Steve usually picks it up and listens to the complete silence, tries to call someone, that kind of thing. But he didn’t want to touch it now. What if the voice on the phone last night had been a new strategy by the things in the house to delay him reaching his safe room? What if it hadn’t been a person on the other side of the line, just an imitation like everything else around?

Steve leaves the phone and goes to collect a pile of lamps to bring upstairs- he’ll try the master bedroom tonight. He’s done with preparations by noon at which point Steve eats more cereal and hates himself. Steve sits down at the kitchen table and opens up his laptop. As is usual now he heads straight to AO3 without checking anything else. He posts an update about the phone call then goes back to check comments on his last post but nothing new has shown up.

With a sigh he stands and searches the cabinets- hoping something will spark his appetite. Nothing does. The house is very quiet. He stares off into space for a few good moments. Steve lays down right on the floor in the kitchen, turning his head a bit to the side to avoid the tender bruise that was still healing on the back of his head. Standing was too much work. Steve was never much of a reader but part of him wishes he could grab a book right now, it would at least be some kind of distraction. But he knows what that would be a mistake. Molly is the only one of them that appears during the day and trying to read was a sure fire way to get her attention. He can see her in his mind’s eye now and shivers. He can hear the faint echo of her laughter. But it’s in his head. For now.

Steve sat on the floor and let time slip away. Just sat there and shivered and rolled his bat loosely across the floor and around in his hands. The nails scratch against the wood floor. But it doesn’t matter. He plucked at the nails sharp ends sticking out from all sides like they were strings on a guitar. He didn’t play the guitar. Didn’t know how. He thinks he may have once known how to play the piano. He was so tired. So fucking tired.


	12. (Post 12) The phone rang

I don’t know if im just fucking crazy but the goddamned phone just rang. I cant even fucking believe it. I have no idea how long ive been here for but its been a really fucking long time and that had never happened before. And there was someone’ someone on the other end. they weren’t looking for me and they hung up but it was such a relief to hear another fucking human persons voice.


	13. (Post 13) Chapter 8

Max goes missing on the _one_ night Billy was really hoping things wouldn't turn out shit.   
  
He’s official on the basketball team, going to a party that even in this hick town will mean booze, and a girl is waiting for him there. Jess or whatever was pretty high up of the food chain. Pretty, he guessed, with long brown hair. Then his dad burst through his door. He was supposed to be out tonight. Supposed to be gone with fucking Susan on some date night shit.   
  
"Where's Max?" His father demands in a dangerously even tone.   
  
Billy tried to swallow his irritation but it bubbles hopelessly to the top and he can’t ever seem to bite his damn tongue the way he knows he should. His shoulder and back hurts and he fucking hates Susan. It had to be her fault they were back early. Probably forgot her fucking cardigan and then she just stands there in the door and watches and he _hates_ her. Billy wipes his eyes furiously and feels the anger simmer in his gut.

He goes to fucking find Max.   
  
It gets dark quickly and he has definitely missed his date by now. He drives from one house to another, across town and back, and the run around brings his blood to full boil. He slams his hand against the steering wheel again and again, hard enough to bruise, in time to the music he has blasting. He's going to fucking kill her. He really is.  
  
The ‘Byers house’, whose name and directions he’d received from the _third_ house he’d visited, is a trash pad at the very edge of town. He bangs on the door probably harder then he should if he's going to have to charm another fucking parent but his patience is at an end. He stamps out a cigarette under his boot and tried to calm his breathing. No one answers. Then he notices the fucking faces peeking out from the window.   
  
They duck down again like he’s a fucking retard.  
  
Billy bangs on the door harder, furious now. He'd seen that little shit heel’s hair. She was in there and _ignoring_ him. She was in there and if any adult was in the house they'd have opened the door by now so she was in there alone. At night. With a bunch of boys she barely knows. Neil is going to kill him so he is going to kill her. Because he fucking _hates_ her. She's so damn stupid.   
  
Billy grabs the door handle and is surprised when it gives way easily. The door isn't even fucking locked. Jesus. Billy pushes it open.  
  
The house looks ever more fucked up on the inside- everything a mess. Crazy shit scribbled all over the walls. Might even be a fucking drug den. Billy is going to drag her back by her hair. He’s going to trash her stupid skateboard into tiny splinters. His eyes land on her little misfit group. She's hanging out with that black kid _again,_ after he fucking warned her and dad is going to blow a gasket. She'll be lucky if Neil doesn't go after the kid himself and Jesus she is so fucking stupid it’s astounding.   
  
He’s putting an end to this now.   
  
He pushed the black kid up against a wall, his blood singing in anger. One of the other little shits pulls uselessly at his arm and they're all yelling. It doesn’t matter. Billy is the bigger one here. Meaner and bigger and there isn’t shit they can do about it. By the time he's done they will all be staying the hell away from _Maxine_. He shakes the kid in his hands even as the rest all start pulling at him.   
  
Then a fucking plate breaks across his head.  
  
He drops the kid reflexively and has to reach out and try and catch himself from falling to the floor. Max is screaming at him, red faced and furious. She was the one to hit him with a plate. She’s grabbing another. He’s almost proud except he wants to kill her.   
  
His legs aren't supporting him right.

He thinks he feels blood on his face. It’s become a familiar feeling over the years. Fuck he’s dizzy.

He grabs out blindly for something.

Everything is spinning slightly.

There’s a handle in his hand but it moves with him rather than support his efforts to stay standing. The fridge door swings open as he almost trips over his own feet. Then a black oozing monster with a petal face full of teeth flops dead out of the fridge and onto the floor in front of him. The house goes silent. Billy stares at the thing. His brain can’t make sense of it. The room is still spinning. He opens his mouth to say something. He doesn’t know what.  
  
Then he passes out.  
  
When Billy wakes up the little shits and the probably hallucinated monster dog are gone and his car is fucking missing. His head is matted with dried blood and nausea rolls through him as he stumbles down the road back towards the house. He wonders if Neil really will actually kill him.

He pukes in some bushes by the roadside.

The little shit took his car. There’s no way she knows how to drive.

His dad really might kill him.

He wonders if she’s crashed into a ditch somewhere.

The sun is just starting to glow on the horizon. He must have been out for a while. When he finally limps around the turn on to Cherry lane he can see the Camaro is sitting in the drive way. Fucking Max sits innocently on the front steps with a bowl of cereal and looks at him as he staggers closer.   
  
"What the fuck was that?" He asks trying to summon the rage that had run through him the previous night. His not sure if it’s his pounding head but he can’t seem to find the anger. Just exhaustion. He’s not even sure if he's referring to her running out in the night or being alone in a house with a bunch of boys or the demon dog or what happened to his car or what.   
  
She stands, bowl in her hands, and levels him a look he’s never seen before on her face. An almost bored indifference that shows none of the usual lingering fear beneath. "You bother me or my friends again, I’ll crack another plate on your head." She turns her back to him, walks inside, and closes the door on his face.


	14. (Post 14) Chapter 9

Steve gazed with unfocused eyes on the large screen of the TV. The haze of static it was displaying was almost hypnotic. It flickered occasionally but kept to static as Steve pushed the down button repeatedly on the remote. Something about the TV was- impressive or something even though Steve has never been able to watch anything on it. He wasn’t quite sure how to describe it. The expensive screen just seemed to fill the room. Mesmerizing. A good distraction.

It’s well past five. The shadow man looms unmoving in the doorway to the living room as it has for the last 3 hours. Steve is not looking at it. He is letting his mind go blank as he stares into the static. He knows he should be upstairs, barricaded in his safe room but he’s just too damned tired to move. Too tired to care. So instead Steve sits on the couch with his bat across his lap, flicking through blank channels on the TV. Steve is ignoring it. It feels like it’s watching him even though its back is to him. He wasn’t going to look at it and he didn’t need it to look at him and he wasn’t going to run. He was just going to sit right here and focus on the static and click the down button again. The remote feels weird in his hand. His other hand holds his bat reassuringly.

The screen flickers again then dies without Steve having done anything. He frowns.

The shadow man is still in the doorway.

Something slams into the back of his head so hard he falls forward, smashes his forehead into his nail studded bat and topples off the couch. “Fuck!” He yelps in pain. He’s bleeding. Steve scrambles around to see what was behind him in an awkward half crouch.

Shit.

It’s himself.

Sort of.

Himself but wrong.

Taller. Or maybe he just looks taller. Bigger. Stronger. Thick black lines seem to creep under his skin. Undulating like snakes or worms in his veins. He’s got a smile on his face and a nasty look in his completely white eyes.

“Why can’t you leave me the fuck alone?” Steve yells at himself.

“Now why would I do that?” The other him tilts his head slightly a hint of a laugh in his voice, “I don’t want to leave you alone.”

Steve scowls and blinks in irritation. He can feel blood dripping down his face. His shoulders start to rise and fall harshly as his breath begins to come in angry grasps. “Oh yeah? What the fuck _do_ you want then? Huh?!”

He smiles, more of a grin, and leans right into Steve’s face. Eerie white eyes bore straight into him. “What do I want?” He asks mockingly like he can’t believe Steve hasn’t caught on yet, “What do I want? I want you to _suffer_ , you fucking retarded piece of shit.”

Steve can’t move as he stares into himself.

His shaking fingers grasp his bat tightly.

The other him glances down at his clenched fingers. “Go ahead.” He whispers softly. He leaned in closer. His breath frigid cold against Steve’s skin. “Go ahead. See what happens. I know you want to.”

Steve scoots backwards. He wants to get away from him. Get upstairs. Lock the door. He shouldn’t have- shouldn’t have stayed out. The fuck was wrong with him?

Steve wasn’t having that, he took a step forward to maintain the uncomfortable closeness. “Go ahead. Come on! Jump! Jump, you fucking worthless idiot!” Steve advanced on himself and he scrambled back further. He reaches out and grabs his hair. Yanks it. “Come on!” He screams spraying spit. Steve slams Steve’s head down back into the bat he had half raised in a feeble attempt to defend himself. Steve screams in pain. Steve screams in rage. Steve punches blindly out as his head is wrenched up and back down towards the nails. He strains against the hold, tries to shake himself out of Steve’s grasp. He forces his head to the side and manages to twist, throws his whole body to the side and managed to wrench himself free from Steve’s grasp. He struggles up to his feet.

He can hear the rumbling of growls building.

 _The blood_. It’s called the flower dog.

He runs.

“You think you can get away from me?”

Steve doesn’t answer himself. He has no breath. No idea what he’d say. He leaves his bloodied bat where it lay. He runs.

“There is no escaping me.”

He reaches the stairs.

There’s blood in his eyes.

He catches sight of the white spider things crawling along the side of the wall near the high entrance ceiling. It’s drooling as it pants unsteady breaths. Its fingers and hands twitching in grotesque mimicry of a wave.

Steve keeps running.

The flower dog is right on his heel. He is certain even without looking that its face is split open into a full bloom of teeth.

Steve slams the bedroom door open and closed behind him. Forces the lock with shaking fingers. Sharp claws scratch frantically at the gap between the door and the floor. Steve backs away quickly and clicks on lamps without pulling his eyes away from the door.

His legs are shaking. He collapses on to the hard wooden floor. Everything is blurry. He gasps unsteadily into his hands. Sobbing. He’s crying. His face stings in pain and he can taste blood in his mouth. The door bangs and creaks as the flower dog throws itself at it with all its weight. Steve crawls over to the bed and pushes the nightstand, between uncontrollable sobs, slowly across the room to reinforce the door. He pulls a lamp close, clutching it like a teddy bear and watches the door through his tears for hours and hours and hours until the sun begins to rise.

The house falls silent.

Steve sits there for a long time.

His tears are mostly dry and he seems to have stopped bleeding by the time he pushes the nightstand away from the door far enough that he can wiggle through the open gap.

His bat is laying on the hardwood floor of the entrance hall. Steve stands over it. Stares at it. The shadows. The crooked rows of nails. Droplets of dried blood. It feels – tainted. Whatever illusion of protection it offered broken. Steve lowers himself slowly to the floor suddenly aware of how bruised and painful his face feels. The bat just lies there. He’s such a _fucking_ _idiot_. He feels like it betrayed him.

Steve leaves the bat on the floor.

He goes into the kitchen and chokes down a bowl of dry cereal. Checks all the locks and doors. He goes back upstairs and turns on all the laps again even though it’s still early morning hours. Replaces the nightstand back up against the locked bedroom door and sets sequential alarms to wake him before 5PM. He crawls under the covers, pulls the blankets up over his head and tries to sleeps.


	15. (Post 15) Don't Know What To Call This

I'm really tired. Sorry if this comes off a little frazzled - kind of hard to think right now. but i wanted to answer you guys anyway.

right so, peachpearpapaya asked if i know how long ive been here. i dont mind the question, its nice to be able to talk to someone, but my answer probably wont be very interesting. truthfully, not really. Its been a long time i think. sometimes it feels like ive always been here. sometimes it feels like years. days blur together and it can be difficult to keep track. its a little easier now that ive started posting on here though. time seem to slip by less? it has to have been a lest a year. it has to.

NORASTEARS you wondered if only that person could call me- i have no idea. the phone ringing, that was the first time thats ever happened. Ususally when i pick up the phone and check on it theres nothing. no sound at all. it doesn't do anything when i try and dial either. so, no idea. it was nice though. just to hear a persons voice. dont know if they can call back. not sure they will try. it didnt sound like they were even trying to reach me.

Sorry its been awhile . Im feeling like crap. had a bit of a run in recently and my face fucking hurts. my dreams are- disorienting. like im in two places at once. Nancy. Nellie. Nancy. Nellie. god, feel like my head is splitting in two. 

I think Im just going to stay in bed today. Thinking about eating makes me nauseous anyway.


	16. (Post 16) Chapter 10

5 PM brings laughter. Right on the dot. She’s been especially loud the last few nights. Even with the door locked and barricaded and all the lamps turned on, it sounds like she is right in his ear. The pillow he squeezes around his head does little to dampen the sound. Deep hysterical laughter goes on all the way until 5 AM as which point it fades to a dull echoing in the back of his mind. He’s not sure at that point if it’s actually her or if the sound is just ringing in his ears all on its own now.

Steve turns off the lamps.

He feels groggy and sick. Uncomfortably warm like he might have a fever.

Steve logs on to AO3. He stares at the page until the letters all blur together at which point he slams the laptop closed again. He needs a minute.

Out the bedroom, down the stairs, past the bat laying on the floor, into the kitchen, over into the half bathroom. Steve flicks the faucet on and dunks the facecloth in to the cold stream. He wipes his stinging face and arms. His face had to be an array of bruises but he doesn't look. Instead he scrubs a finger stupidly across his teeth like it will accomplish anything. He goes back upstairs without eating.

With a sigh he pushed the laptop back open.

He doesn’t stay on long. Doesn’t feel the energy in him to post anything new, just looks at the comment left on his last post and closes the laptop to head down stairs again. Like a ghost wandering familiar halls on a loop. He passed the bat and went into the living room to fell on to the couch. 

Steve stares at the ceiling.

His thoughts drift.

There’s a muffled banging sound from far away.

Steve blinked and the house came back into focus.

The sound had punctured the emptiness around him. He sat up to listen. The banging sound came into sharper focus, now that he was actually listening for the sound now. And there it was- a dull thudding banging.

What the heck was that? It sounded maybe like it was coming from upstairs.

Steve crawled slowly to his feet. The banging continued.

He walked into the entrance hall frowning. The sound was coming from upstairs.

The nailed bat was still laying on the tiled floor. Somewhat reluctantly Steve bent to pick it up. It felt unnatural in his hands.

Steve climbed the steps at a cautious pace, following the sound until he hovered outside a closed door. He never went in this room. He was pretty sure this bedroom was actually the one that was supposed to be his. Steve never used it. The only time he ever entered it was to grab clean clothes. But he could hear the banging and scratching, more steady and insistent. It was definitely coming from inside.

Carefully, bat up and at the ready, he twisted the nob and pushed the door open. The room was empty. The banging was coming from the closet. A scraping, pounding, desperate sort of sound.

Slowly Steve reached out and turned the handle.

A mountain of dirt flooded out. Steve backed away quickly, scrambling not to get buried. Something heavy fell out among the dirt and landed on the floor with a resounding _thud_.

The thing on the ground coughs, pushes itself up on shaking arms. It vomits up dirt and something black that looked almost gelatinous. It’s a man, Steve realizes vaguely. Or it was shaped like one. The whole thing covered in dirt and grime, like a recently risen corpse. Steve stares as the thing emits horrible hacking sounds. He’s clenching the bat so tightly he can feel his fingers shake from the strain. The things falls forward, collapses on the ground, shaking.

Steve took a step away from it. He needed to get to his fortifications for the night. He wasn’t going to touch the thing. He shouldn’t look at it anymore either. It would be gone by morning. He must have zoned out on the kitchen floor for longer than he thought. He was going to get somewhere safe. He didn’t think he could handle another encounter with the White Spider so shortly. Or the fucking Shadow Man.

A growl rumbled deep throughout the house.

Steve looked down at the collapsed thing in front of him and realized with alarm that there was _blood_. Blood on its clothes and in the vomit hidden by the dirt.

The growling grew louder.

Steve backed further away, eyes shifting around the room. He could feel the panic beginning to grip at him. The blood- the blood had caught the attention of the flower dog. Swearing Steve slammed the bedroom door shut. There was no time to get to his fortification in the guest room now. He would take his chances with the weird, weak looking thing on the floor over the flower dog any day.

There were only two lamps in this bedroom. Steve had appropriated the rest of them for rooms that he used more often but thankfully he’d had the sense to leave at least one light source in every room in case of emergency. Now he pulls them to the back of the room, into the corner farthest from the door and the thing still lying on the floor.

The desk might have been good to help fortify the door but moving it would be loud and the flower dog was particularly attracted to sound. And he wasn’t sure how the thing on the floor would react either. Best not to risk it.

Steve wedged himself tight against the corner. Two sides of him covered and he didn’t have to worry about something getting him from behind. The lamps were working even if there wasn’t as many of them as Steve usually preferred. He didn’t crouch down. The flower dog was fast and he’d need to be able to move quickly if it broke through the door. And if he crouched he might just pass out on the floor. Less chance of that standing up.

Steve had been quick to learn the flower dog’s attraction to blood. Back in the early days, back when he hadn’t quite figured out the rules and Steve had still been trying to cook food, he’d sliced his finger with a cutting knife. The nicked finger hadn’t seemed like that big of a deal until the snarling thing had come rounding around the corner from the living room into the kitchen. Steve had a strange puckered scar that almost looked he’d been attached by a cheese greater on his upper left bicep. He hadn’t expected it to jump that high and had barely had time to block his face when the thing had come flying at him.

The snarling grew louder as the thing sniffed the blood. Steve forced his breath into a slow, even pattern. He dared not move.

Something scratched at the door.

The door shakes dangerously as the thing beyond it snarls angrily and pushed against it.

Steve held his breath.

The lock held.

Steve tried not to blink.

Even when the sounds faded as the creature hunted on, Steve remained as still as he could. Kept his eyes pinned to the door. He remained frozen for hours and hours. At some point tears rolled out his straining eyes and he took a deep breath through his nose. The flower dog didn’t come back.

Finally, finally the windows began to lighten. The house fell completely silent. The bat fell from its ready position down to a loose grab by his side. Steve forced his eyes shut, felt them _burn_ from exhaustion, and forced them back open. His eye caught on the thing still laying unmoving on the pile of dirt. He would have thought it would be gone by now.

He slowly forced his feet a little closer.

It was still laying there. Still and covered in dirt, blood, and black muck. Molly was the only one Steve had ever known to show up during the day. What did it mean that this one was still here?

Steve hesitated. Unsure.

A new one had never just- _appeared_ like this before.

Moving slowly, he inched toward the door with his eyes glued to it in case it popped up and tried to attack him. There was no reaction from the thing on the floor and when Steve reached the door he slowly, slowly undid the lock. He kept his eyes on it as he escaped out into the hall but the thing still didn’t move so Steve slammed the door shut and held his breath. But there was no sound.

Fine. Whatever.

Steve would just leave it alone. Ignore it. It would probably be gone after a cycle.

It was fine.

Pushing the master bedroom door cautiously open he sighed in relief to find it empty. No white Spider or Shadow Man or Molly. Whatever that dirt thing was, its changes didn’t seem to be affecting the others.

Steve locks the door behind him.


	17. (Post 17) Chapter 11

Billy coughed wetly, the copper taste of blood coated his mouth. And something else. There was something choking him. He couldn’t breathe. Everything hurt. His eyes burned. What had happened? Hid dad? Panic wells inside him. His hand reaches out on instinct, searching for someone in empty air. Connor. Where was Connor?

No. Wait.

This was- this wasn’t California. Hadn’t been California for a long time now.

Billy rolled blindly, strands of his hair catching beneath his own weight and ripping. He tries to quiet his coughing in case his dad is still around. He doesn’t think he’s ever felt this bad before. God. Dirt. His mouth tasted of dirt and blood. Fuck. Why? He vomited to the side then gagged. Blindly he wiped at his face, pushing dirt out of his eyes. His throat was raw and sore.

Where? What had happened?

Max. The Mall. That fucking _thing_. _Heather_. Billy had- had- Billy gagged again. Oh. God. “Max?” He tried frantically to yell but his voice was shot to hell and it comes out nothing but a hoarse whisper. Where the fuck? Where the fuck was he? Where was Max? What the _hell_ had happened?

His arms shook dangerously as he pushed himself up.

_Get the fuck up you pussy._

His mind struggled to make sense of what he was seeing. A bedroom. Just a normal looking bedroom. Plain beige walls, a large bed, a small black desk and matching chair. An open closet door and a mountain of dirt. Like it had spilled out from inside the closet. Where the _fuck_ was he? Where was Max? That- the fucking _thing_?

A hand came to rest on his stomach, skimming across the flesh. There was no wound although his shirt was ripped to shreds. A giant fucking hole in the cloth from where that _thing_ had stabbed him straight through. He breathed shakily for a moment- feeling the unbroken skin expand against his hand as he breathed. Clear and unblemished but for the black gunk that clung all over him. He was fucking alive. How was he fucking alive? Where was Max? And there had been another girl. The one that _thing_ had been determined to kill.

A girl with sad brown eyes. She had–somehow- She’d been _in_ his _head_.

Oh god.

Memories of him mom, those he had long buried, rushed back to him again like a tide. The smell of the sea, the crashing of waves, a white dress and a large sunhat, a gentle hand on his cheek. Billy squeezed his eyes shut to banish them. There was no time for that.

He hurts worse than after any beating his old man had ever given him but Billy forced himself to his feet. Leaning against the wall he shuffled towards the door. He’d half expected it to be locked when he reached for the handle but it wasn’t. It swung easily open at the slight turn of the knob.

Where the fuck was he?

Billy stepped out into the large empty hallway. He had never been in a house this nice looking and he had absolutely no idea where the fuck he could be.

Absentmindedly he tried the knob on the room next to the one he’d just come out of but it was locked. Right. Whatever. He just needed to get out of here anyway. Shuffling slowly along, one stiff leg after another, he hobbled to a banister. A grand carpeted stairway opened onto a large entrance way with high arched ceilings. Jesus. His eyes zeroed in on the large dark wood front door. Get out. That was all he needed to do. He’d figure everything else out from there.

Tailing dirt and viscera behind him, Billy made his way gradually down the large staircase. Every step ached and burned. He felt like one giant bruise. His eye caught the glistening chandelier hanging from the ceiling. This place was fucking gigantic. Where the _fuck_ was he? It didn’t matter. He shambled over to the door, twisted the ornate knob and pushed. The door didn’t move. What the fuck? He fiddled with the deadbolt and, certain it was undone, tried again. Was it fucking locked from the outside? Billy thrusts his weight against it as best he could, twisting and turning the deadbolt and lock but the door wouldn’t budge. He banged a fist uselessly against it and felt his hand throb. “Fuck.”

He turns back to the house. There had to be a phone somewhere.

Call the house. No. Jesus- the police.

He’d- He’d call the police.

He limps down the hall at a frustratingly slow and painful pace.

In the darkened doorway Billy’s hand found and flicked the light switch, illuminating a kitchen. It looked weird. Not just expensive, although it was undoubtedly that too, but also just really really weird. Everything weirdly slick and shiny but also sort of empty. Almost like something out of Tron. It didn’t matter, there was a phone on the wall. Shaky fingers make it difficult to dial but he managed after a moment and held the phone impatiently up to his ear. Nothing. No ringing. No connection. “Fuck!” He screams in frustration and slams the phone so hard back onto the hook that it slide off the cradle and crashed to the floor.

Billy slides down too. Everything hurts. He can’t get the memories out of his head. The beach, Connor running a hand down his arm, crashing waves, his mom. He’s crying like a little _bitch_ and he can’t stop. His hands are shaking. He’s so fucking scared. Pulling his aching legs up to his chest, Billy tucks himself into a ball on the floor and cries.

* * *

The wind whispers across the lake. Other kids are laughing, slashing in the gross lake water. Steve digs his toes into the damp sand and scrunches up his nose at a piece of seaweed nearby. Gross. It’s cold and he wraps his small arms around his stomach and tries not to shiver in his new swim shorts. One of the counselors approaches and bends to meet his eye with an encouraging smile, “you don’t want to go in?”

Steve shook his head. He wasn’t going in gross lake water.

“Ah- Come on” She urged gently, “Everyone else is having fun!”

“I don’t want to go in the water!” Steve snapped with a scowl. He wanted to go home. Mom had tried to spin this like it would be something he would enjoy. He knew the real reason he was stuck here was because they were going on another trip. He would have been happier if they had just left him at home. He stomped off across the sad excuse for a beach feeling the rocky sand between his toes. Takes a step.

And falls-

It’s still dark out and he should be upstairs with Nancy. He knows that. He hopes she doesn’t wake up to find him gone. He doesn’t mean to be an asshole. He just can’t remember now when his parents said they were going to be back and he’s just- just making sure things aren’t completely trashed if they come home and he’s at school -

And falls-

It had grown dark around him awhile ago but Steve hasn’t moved. The air is cool and crisp and so, so quiet. He sits on the edge and looks down-

And falls-

A girl with bright blonde hair and brown eyes give him a small smile, eyes darting about cautiously. Her hand on his shoulder is warm. A grounding comfort. "It will get better." She walks away and when he takes a step to follow

falls-

Crashes into the pool. He swims up and breaks surface with a laugh. The hot humid summer sun had driven all the kids to the pool. The lifeguard, some teenager perched in the shade, blew their whistle again and again as kids run up and down, jumping and kicking at each other in the water. Steve swam up behind Tommy, sprung up and dunked the other boy down. He sputtered angrily and splashed back in retaliation at Steve. One of the other boys took advantage and pushed Steve under.

He opens his eyes. His arms flail hopelessly. Bubbles float past his face but the water is pitch black. He tried to gasp for breath. Which way was up? He couldn’t- couldn’t get-. The world tilts. Or Steve is tilting, his body moving unnaturally away from the earth. Like gravity has been turned off. He can’t see anything.

The black surrounds him. He chokes.

Steve is in the void again. Standing stuck still. He feels precariously balanced like he hovers on the edge of something terrible. If he moves, he’ll fall again. This time the void isn’t silent. There’s a crying that echoes into the nothing. It’s creepy and he hates it.

The crying hiccups and stops.

“Steve?” A voice calls hesitantly.

He’s afraid to move. Terrified of the void. But he doesn’t want to be found either.

Shutup. Shutup. Shutup!

Steve wakes in the master bedroom’s enormous king bed with a stifled gasp. He glances to the windows. The faint gray light they provide doesn’t give him a clear judge of the time so he reaches over and opens the laptop. It was already 2PM. He’d slept for almost nine hours.

He can feel the bat from where he’d left it on the floor before the bed.

Rolling over in the bed he put his back to it.

He should probably get up. Eat. Check the doors and windows. Check online. It just sounded like so much _work_. Why was he still _so_ tired? The blankets tucked over his head he let his eyes close again. He didn’t want to get up. Besides there was that thing from last night. It might not be gone yet. Best to give it a full cycle. Steve waits and tried to will himself back to sleep. He cracked his eyes back open unhappily. The warm comfortable weight of the bed wasn’t enough to get him back to sleep now he was awake. So tired but he couldn’t sleep. Steve dragged himself out of the bed and quickly made use of the connected master bathroom before he curled back up on the bed. With few other options Steve pulled the laptop over to him.

He opened AO3. With fingers that feel slow and uncoordinated he pulled up a ‘new chapter’ or whatever. He stared at the curser for awhile and sighed. He writes another entry and posts it without much further thought. Body aching he pulled himself out of the bed, double checked the lock on the door, took a sip of water from the bathroom faucet, turned on all the lamps, and settled in for what was sure to be another night of hell.


	18. (Post 18) Something New Showed Up

I just slept for nine hours and im still exhausted. I dont think I have the energy to get out of bed today. Just going to have o trust the windows and doors will be locked the same as they always fucking are. In maybe interesting news -there’s a new one in the house I think which is fucking dandy. I opened a closet door and it like flopped out on the floor. Looks kind of like a person but covered in dirt and black guts so that’s great. Is it too wishful thinking to hope it will just disappear nad or leave me alone?

In other news I continue to have dreams that I think iinclude both a Nellie and a Nancy. I'm now getting head splitting migranes when I wake too. Is that progress? Who fuckig knows.


	19. (Post 19) Chapter 12

The house is silent that night but Steve doesn’t allow that to lower him into any sense of security. Hopefully that lesson had been beaten successfully into his skull by now. He stays awake and quiet, listening for any threat. The hours pass slowly but eventually 5 AM comes.

He’s still tired but now his body is aching to move a little so he stands.

The quiet of the night has made him slightly paranoid. That was the quietest night he’s had in a long time so he grabs the bat before he opens the bedroom door a crack. Peering out reveals only the usual carpet and walls. Pushing the door slowly open Steve stepped carefully out into the hall. Nothing. It looks just like it always does. He strains his ears but hears nothing. The stairs and entrance all look normal and Steve starts to feel stupid for tiptoeing.

And then he walks into the kitchen, flicks on the light, and finds the thing from upstairs curled up on the floor.

Steve freezes.

Stares at it.

It doesn’t move.

He thinks about leaving because apparently this thing didn’t just conveniently vanish after a cycle like Steve was really, really fucking hoping it would. And it still seems to be ignoring the rules that the monsters leave him the fuck alone after 5 AM which was really fucking unfair.

Carefully Steve steps around it to open the cupboard and pull out the unopened box of cereal. He keeps a wary eye on the thing while he rips open the bag and stuffs a handful in his mouth. He chews and swallows quickly without tasting anything and takes another hurried handful.

The thing lets out a low groan, a harsh cough, and then, “Max?” a strained voice called out.

Steve stuffed whatever he could in his mouth and made for the exit, cereal box abandoned on the counter. He was going back upstairs.

“Wait!” the thing behind him called out, “Wait! Fuck – Wait!”

Steve covered his ears. He didn’t know what this one’s deal was but better to just get the fuck out.

“Get the fuck back here!” the voice spits furiously, “Where the fu-ck _am_ I?!”

Steve’s not sure what makes him stop. The crack in the voice at its last question, some power of persuasion the thing possessed, something else entirely, but he does stops and looks back at the thing in the kitchen. It’s trying unsuccessfully to struggle to its feet so it is probably not too fast. Steve could out run it if he needed to. A little reassured by this, Steve takes a determined breath through his nose and slings the bat over his shoulder. He stomps back into the kitchen and stands over the thing. “What do you want?” He hisses.

The thing lets out a scratchy hysterical laugh tilting its head back to look up at him, “I want to know where the _fuck_ I am! And _preferably_ how to get the fuck out of here!” it snarls at him.

Steve frowns uncertainly, shifting his weight. Under all the black gunk it really looks almost human. And it doesn’t talk like any of the others either. It pants harshly, as though it has exhausted most of its energy screaming without even managing to stand. Sharp blue eyes stare up at Steve.

Steve glares and backs up a measured step. 

He’s not getting stuck in whatever trick this thing was playing.

The thing blinks like it can’t believe what it’s seeing then shakes its head as Steve starts to retreat again, “Hey! You- fucking wait! Where the fuck am I you shit-stain!” The thing snaps. Which was really more along the lines of what Steve was used to hearing from the other things in the house.

“We’re in my house.” Steve scowled back.

“ _What_?” The thing asks, “What the fuck do you mean we’re _in your fucking house_?!”

Yeah, Steve had had enough of whatever this was. He turned to leave again. He got barely two steps in before something hit him in the back and Steve spun furiously around, bat at the ready. The box of cereal clattered to the floor, loose cereal spilling and rolling across the usually pristine tile. The thing was standing now which made Steve uncomfortable, he hadn’t thought it was able to do that. And it had thrown the cereal box at him. So maybe not at helpless as it first appeared. Typical.

It grips the counter behind it to keep balance on shaky legs but raised a hand once Steve caught its eye. “Look,” The thing breathed, “I just-” Its nose flared, seeming to wrestle with itself, “I-I need help. I was at the mall. And – A whole bunch of crazy shit went down, like fucking _insane_ crazy shit, and now I’m he-re.” Its voice cracked a bit again, “And I don’t know _where this is or how I got here_ and I really need to get out of here and find out if my- my sister is -is ok."

Its voice was familiar, Steve realized now. It had been the voice on the phone all those cycles ago. How long ago had that been? Weeks? Months? Years? But being the voice on the phone didn’t necessarily grant this thing any legitimacy. It was probably trying to lull him into a false sense of security so it could kill him.

It was lucky Steve was basically past caring at this point.

He dropped the bat from his shoulder and considered the maybe-person staring at him. “‘Crazy shit’, that’s a good word for it.” Steve muttered. He doesn’t really think the thing is real but- just in case it’s probably only reasonable to give fair warning. “Look, you said there was ‘crazy shit’ going down at the mall? If by ‘crazy shit’ you meant- melt your brain levels of insanity, then you should know that there’s only a crap ton more of that here. I’ve been stuck in this house for I don’t know how long and I haven’t been able to find a way out. And the ‘crazy shit’ is about to go off the rails again in about 7 hours from now.”

“What the fuck do you _mean_ you haven’t been able to find a way out?” the maybe-person demanded.

“I _mean_ that _if_ you are real, _which is still up for debate_ , then you are probably stuck here just like I am. There is no way out. No leaving this house. None of the doors open. None of the windows will break. The phone doesn’t work. No one ever walks by outside. Far as I can tell, we’re just stuck here. Forever.”

Steve stomps up the stairs and leaves what is probably a just strangely benign hallucination behind him.


	20. (Post 20) Chapter 13

The maybe-person has trashed the kitchen by the sound of things. All that efforts going to be wasted tomorrow when everything resets.

Eventually Steve has to stomp back down for some kind of food.

More cereal. Yay.

And yep. The Maybe-person is still there. Looks a little less weak now, which has Steve carefully adjusting the grip on his bat.

Cans and boxes are all scattered across the floor. Lovely.

Maybe-person clenches his jaw when he spots Steve in the doorway. It is interesting to see another person. Steve is familiar with the monsters obviously but they aren’t human and it’s only ever been himself here. He doesn’t remember ever having met another human before even though he knows he must have. The long hair is wild- a curly matted mess. But it’s the blue eyes that are most striking.

“How’s getting out working for you?” Steve can’t resist asking.

Maybe-person curls its hands into fists.

Maybe-person stared at Steve with wide searching eyes, jaw twitching. Like Steve was just ganna suddenly shout, “Ha! Just kidding! Exits over here!” Uncomfortable under the intense stare, Steve picks up the box of cereal from the ground and shoves a handful into his mouth. He chews and drops the box back to the floor and lets cereal scatter everywhere. Steve turned back towards the entryway. “I’m ganna go back upstairs. I have uh- stuff to do before it gets too late.” With that he turned and left the maybe-person in the kitchen and did head right upstairs.

After a moment he could hear it shuffling after him.

Steve waited at the top of the staircase until the maybe-person had reached the last step. Its face pale, an arm wrapped around its stomach. “You can use the bathroom if you want.” Steve told them, nodding towards the door. “There are spare towels under the sink.” They shuffle past Steve without a word and slam the bathroom door decisively after.

Safely alone, Steve sat on the floor with his back pressed about the rungs of the banister and preceded to _freak the fuck out_.

He rocks a little, trying to catch his breath.

Was the thing a real person? If so, how had it gotten here? Stuck with Steve? Why was it covered in black ooze? It – he?- said something about a mall? Crazy shit? Were other people trapped in places like Steve was? Trapped with monsters hunting them? No one in the comments of his online journal had said anything like that. But even if that was the case how had this one ended up here?

Jesus. _Jesus shit_.

Steve wrapped his hand gently around nail studded head of the bat. Feeling the familiar nails, some still colored by his own dried blood, prick and push against the skin. A grounding sort of pain. Taking a breath Steve pushed himself up, went to the bedroom and grabbed a pair of sweat pants and a T-shirt. He couldn’t remember ever having worn either of them before. Clothes acquired Steve knocked hesitantly on the bathroom door. There was no answer but the door was unlocked so Steve opened the door barely a crack and stuffed the clothes through then closed the door quickly again.

The man, boy, _whatever_ who stepped out from a haze of warm steam was almost unrecognizable. The sweaty, matted dark hair, turned out to actually be a honey golden blonde. Limp from the water it was still slightly curly. He had a sharp face now that it was clear of dirt, with the shocking blue eyes. He was hard to look away from which made Steve a little nervous that he was actually like the others of the house. Not a real person after all.

He pushes past Steve without a word and stomps back down the staircase, hair still dripping wet.

Steve listens for hours as the maybe-person stomps all around below. Mindful of the time, eventually his curiosity lures him down as well. Probably a good idea to give them a heads up shits probably about to start going down soon.

Fucking maybe-person is banging on the basement door. Steve feels what is probably his soul leaving his body. "What the hell are you doing?!" He hears himself yell in absolute panic.   
  
"I'm getting the fuck out of here." Maybe-person grunts determinedly. He’s fiddling with the handle and pushing his shoulder against the door with incredible force. Forgetting his bat entirely, Steve tackles him. There's a grunt as the body beneath him tries to throw him off. Steve scrambles for a hold. The basement door can’t be opened.   
  
"Get the fuck off me!" The maybe-guy yells.   
  
Steve lands hard on the wood floor, “You can’t!” A fist hit his face. Hard. His ears start ringing. Fuck. Steve scrambles to get up and throws a wild retaliatory punch that hits nothing but air.

“Just. Stay. Down!” They growl. Again the first came down. And again. Until Steve could do nothing but lay there and wheeze in pain, reeling from the blows. There’s a clatter as his bat is kicked across the floor and well out of reach.

He forces himself to stand as the stiff basement door gives way and swings open.

The smell of rotting wood wafts up burning his nose in an instant. The staircase, just barely illuminated by the kitchens lights, is more than half submerged in black putrid water. It laps against a step just a few away from the top in unnatural waves. The whole basement filled.

Maybe-person beside him seems disappointed, shoulders slumped as he stares.

Steve can’t look away from the lapping waves hitting that decaying step. Eating it away.   
  
A deep, sickening growl echoes behind them. 

Oh god.

There’s blood on his lips. Maybe-persons knuckles are bleeding. The world comes back into sharp focus and he grabs hold of their shoulder and pulls as they turn. In the doorway to the living room, the inky black dog looms, mouth peeled open to reveal the horrifying patterning of teeth.  
  
"What the fuck is that?!"

Steve slams the door to the basement shut frantically and drags the maybe-person behind him as he runs for the kitchen exit and the staircase. His side catches the edge of a wall has he turns too sharp in his panic.

“Jesus fuck!” The dude kicks out as the dog jumps, manages to knock it aside but Steve knows that won’t stop it for long.

They thunder up the stairs together then into the spare bedroom. He throws the lock shut and grabs hold of the chest. To his credit it doesn’t take the other guy long to catch on and help push.   
Steve is pretty sure the guys a real person now. Nothing else but a human could be that fucking dumb.   
  
The door secured Steve steps back on shaky legs.

The other guy slides down to sit sprawled on the floor.

“I’m Steve by the way.” Steve says. Jesus. There’s another person here. Steve barely knows how to deal with himself.

The guy rests his head in his hands and doesn’t answer.


	21. (Post 21) Chapter 14

Trapped in the spare bedroom, Steve watches the guy pull himself together. “I’m Steve.” He says again, like a moron.

“I know.” The guy murmurs into his hands then glances up at him at last.

“Oh.” Steve shifts on his feet, picks at the hems of his sleeves. “Are you from Hawkins?” He is suddenly aware that he hasn’t showered in…a while. Does he stink? He probably stinks.

“No. I’m from California.” Steve blinks at vehement response. “Moved to Hawkins last year,” The guy licks his lips, giving him a considering look, “Billy Hargrove.”

Steve nods, “Cool.” He taps his fingers nervously. Casting his eyes around the room he tries to think of something to say. It’s a lot more difficult now that he’s really beginning to think _Billy_ is a real person. A person from outside. Billy is staring at him now and he’s starting to feel twitchy. He decides to busy himself by turning on the many lamps that dot across the room.

“What was that thing?” Billy asks before the silence stretches too long.

Steve swallows. “Ah. Right. Yeah, that. There’s a few of them. I mean. Not like a few of that one specifically- I. yeah. I call that one the flower dog.” Feeling strange standing over the guy while he’s on the floor, Steve sits on the edge of the bed.

“Flower dog?” Billy sounds distinctly unimpressed. He's got a mean sneer on his face. 

Fighting back a flush, Steve shrugs.

“And there are more things like that here.” Billy says more than asks sounding tired. 

“Yep. Well I mean, there are other dangerous things here. They all kind of look distinct. But they do all come out at the same time. Night time I mean. Best we stay in here until morning.”

“Right.”

Billy scrutinizes the blocked door for a moment but doesn’t say anything. Then he gets to his feet, walks around to the other side of the bed a flops down on top of the covers. Steve stares. Billy rolls to his side, facing away from Steve deliberately.

Right. Ok then.

Fair he guessed, he probably hadn’t made the best first impression.

Fuck his bat was still downstairs. Ugh.

The hours of the night drag on in an even more painfully slow manner then usual. At one point the sound of wet panting comes from behind the bedroom door which had to be the white spider. Then it starts gently scraping the door as it runs its many fingers down the wood. Steve’s fingers curl and unfurl anxiously even after it leaves a few hours later. Despite the door being secured and the lights all on, he desperately misses his bat. The sound of Billy breathing behind him is deeply unnerving too.

He’s uncertain if Billy sleeps or not during the night but he isn’t by the time the windows finally begin to lighten. Instead he’s rolled onto his back and is staring at the ceiling.

Steve swallows awkwardly and speaks for the first time in hours with a croaky voice, “We’re uh, probably good to leave now. Think it’s late enough that they all should be gone.”

Billy helps him push the heavy chest away from the door without a word.

“Oh, um, want to see why I haven’t starved to death?”

Steve leads the way down the stairs and flicks on the light to the kitchen. There’s no sign of the mess Billy had made of it yesterday. The floor is spotless, cans and boxes all restored and returned to their places in the cabinets. “What the fuck?” Steve hears Billy whisper as he opens and closes the cupboard doors.

Steve leans up against a counter and nods, “Yeah. Anything you can manage to mess up here always resets in the mornings. Well, except lightbulbs. Those stay broken.”

“And the food just comes back?” Billy confirms.

Steve nods, “yep. Always. Always back in the same place too. It does mean no leftovers though.”

Billy stomps over to the fridge and began digging through that too. There wasn’t too much in there to Steve’s memory. “Great cuz I’m fuck starving,” Billy seemed to murmur more to himself than anything.

Steve was too come to think of it- He hadn’t eaten anything yesterday. Steve hovers uncertainly, watching as Billy begins to pull ingredients from shelves. He doesn’t remember the last time he had any real kind of meal. "There’s no sauce." he warns as Billy puts down a box of pasta on the counter. Steve is ignored. Then there is broccoli and cucumber? Billy throws together olive oil, sugar, salt, garlic powder, and a little red vinegar from the back of a cabinet. It’s far beyond Steve’s technical skills.  
  
Oh, pasta salad maybe? Steve would never have thought of that.  
  
When it’s finished Billy loads up a bowl for himself without offering one for Steve and sits down heavily at the kitchen table. Quietly, Steve grabs a bowl and fills up his own before sitting awkwardly at the table too. The first bite is near heaven. It’s absolutely delicious. By far the best thing he can remember tasting. Steve has to actually close his eyes to take in and appreciate the taste. 

They eat in silence for awhile.

“You said you were at a mall, yeah? And ‘crazy shit’ happened?” Steve tries. 

“What about it?” The guy chomps down on his fork viciously.

Steve flounders slightly, “I mean, I guess I was wondering what happened?”

There’s a deeply unpleasant scraping sound as Billy runs his fork against the bottom of the bowl. “Does it fucking matter?”

Ok. Clearly a sore topic. “I guess not,” He shrugged in an attempt at nonchalantness. The silence is just too uncomfortable to endure though. Steve tries again, “So, you said you have a sister right?” He wonders that that must be like. He doesn’t think he has any siblings. Pretty sure he’s an only child but it’s hard to be certain when he can barely recall vague blobs of memory he thinks must be his parents.

Billy doesn’t take to this topic any better than the first. He glares at Steve and shoves another fork full of pasta in his mouth. “Stepsister.” He corrects. “Max.”

“Ah” Steve nods like he knows what that’s like. He doesn’t. “So – your parent’s got remarried to each oth-”

Billy stands up with a scraping of his chair. He leans in towards Steve and his own fingers reflexively tighten around the bat against his side. “My life is really none of your fucking business.” He snared with a dangerous sort of smile then abandoned Steve to the kitchen alone.

Ok then.

Steve finishes eating in silence.

He puts his and Billy’s empty bowls in the dishwashers, then cleans the pasta pot and strainer and put both of those away as well. It’s stupid he knows. Pointless. He does it anyway.

He finds Billy in the living room, closely examining the seams of a window.

“Thanks for, uh, cooking. It was really good.” No response to that. “I’m just ganna- go nap. Feel free to explore I guess.” Billy ignores him, purposefully continuing to examining the windows, so he shuffles awkwardly up the stairs and locks himself in to a bedroom. Dutifully he sets several alarms and crawls into bed feeling pleasantly full for the first time in memory.


	22. (Post 22) Think It Might Be A Person

Sorry its been aawhile. whoeve mentioned last time about the new thing maybe not being a monster? I think you might be right. It He says his name is billy. He's not happy being stuck here. I meaan not that i am either i guess its just weird to see how motivated he is to get out. if he is a real person, i have no idea how he could have gotten here. also I think he might have been the same person who was on the phone all those cycles ago. Mentined a step-sister named Max. hes kind of touchy, or maybe i just dont know how to interact with people cuz I think I pissed him off.


	23. (Post 23) Chapter 15

It’s just past 5 AM and Steve sits on the last stair of the staircase and watches as maybe-person Billy throws himself against the front door. It doesn’t budge of course, despite the impressive display of cursing, kicking, punching, and pulling. _The guy’s determined_ , Steve thinks vaguely, _have to give him that_. He blinks and watches as Billy grips and twists the handle furiously, throwing his weight this way and that. Billy pounds at the little side windows trying to crack them. It won’t work. Steve knows it won’t. But probably Billy isn’t going to listen to him so instead Steve stands and walks past to the living room and plops down on the couch putting his back to the door. He can hear Billy banging and grunting in frustration but Steve’s used to ignoring worse things than that.

Steve opens his laptop and sets several alarms. He is so fucking tired. Sure the volume is all the way up, Steve collapses back onto the cushions and curls in on himself. He doesn’t have a blanket but he’s so tired it won’t matter in a moment. His eyes already shut he listens to the distant sounds, Billy’s banging has been reduced to quieter cursing. Sounds like he has decided to try tackling the door with more finesse then his original plan of pure brute strength.

The bat is a comforting weight beside him.

Everything fades away-

Steve stands surrounded by friends and watches a shabby looking boy hanging up a poster at the end of the hall. It’s sad in a pathetic kind of way but looking at it makes him uncomfortable so he turns and cracks a joke to distract himself. Nancy stands beside him giving sympathetic glances in the boy’s direction. The boy besides Steve laughs like he always does.   
  
The girl at the end of the hall stands up and brushes off her uniform skirt. The knees of one of her tights has ripped, the contents of her bag spilled all over the floor. The group in front of Steve snigger and turn to push past, shoulder checking him as they go. Steve ignores it. He’s been getting better at that. Feels like he ignores everything these days.   
  
The hallway is empty but for them.   
  
He approaches cautiously, aware his presence might make this worse. 

“Hey,” He says leaning down and grabbing on of the books to pass back to her, “It’s Nellie, right?”

She takes the book from his grasp and stuffs it back into her satchel. “Yeah. And you’re Steve Harrington.” She considers him for half a moment, jamming more things into her bag hurriedly. “And we probably shouldn’t talk to each other.”

He doesn’t know what to say to that. When did he get so bad at this?

She looks at him again and sighs. Glancing around a moment she leans in just slightly, “You aren’t the only one here Steve but it’s probably best we don’t draw any more attention to ourselves.” She pauses for a moment longer then puts a hand on his shoulder, “It will get better. We just have to hang on.” There’s an unnaturally dark shadow standing behind her in the shape of a man- Steve knows it is not. It is not a man. It looms there, waiting. Nellie let’s her hand fall away and she takes a step down the corridor and he wants to reach out and grab her arm. Stop her. But he doesn’t. He doesn’t move.

She looks back at him for just one moment, “Thanks for the help.”

Then she is gone and the man who is not a man, made of shadow and darkness, grows taller.

Steve turns. He needs to get to class.

He turns and is facing himself.

The dark veins putrid and hateful against too pale skin. He smiles at himself. “Go ahead,” He whispers viciously, “Go ahead and jump.” Steve doesn’t move, so he reaches out and shoves himself. He falls backward but doesn’t hit floor. Just falls and falls f o r e v e r.

There’s a loud bang.

Steve startles awake, jerks upright, and grips his bat on instinct.

Billy stands in the door way- red faced, sweaty, and furious. No luck then with the door. Shocker. "What about the attic?" Billy asks, "This house have an attic?" He demands, fists clenched.   
  
Steve has to laugh even through his grogginess. He shakes his head in disbelief- this still, even after that debacle with the basement. Is this what he had been like in those first few days? It was hard to remember now. Lying back on the bed he looks up and over at Billy’s glare and tries to control his laughter.   
  
"At least I'm trying to do something! What the fuck have you been doing this whole time anyway?! Just sitting here?!"

“Well, I was sleeping.” The look of absolute rage he receives sobers him somewhat. Steve sits up and runs a hand through his slightly greasy hair. “Look, I told you, I’ve been here for a _really_ fucking long time now. I check the doors and windows everyday but I have tried literally everything possible to get out of here. It’s just not happening.”  
  
Billy’s jaw clenches then the fight seemed to leave him somewhat as he slumped against the doorway.   
  
"You said 'whole time'. Do you know- how long I've been missing?" Steve asks even as he's not sure he wants to know.  
  
Billy looks him over with a slight scowl, "You don't?"   
  
"Time goes a little wonky here. I think." Steve shrugs noncommittally. He doesn't want to talk about how much he thinks he's lost. 

“Over a year.”

Huh. Yeah. That felt both accurate and far, far too short a time.

Silence stretched between them.

Almost peaceful for the first time in a long time.

"They’re still looking for you." Billy says suddenly into the quiet.   
  
Steve hums noncommittal and looks away to stare at the wall. He’s not sure how he feels about that really. It should be nice, probably, to have some kind of confirmation. That at one point he really had existed in the really world. That people cared and where looking for him. Not really sure who 'they' were. Presumably parents. Does he have parents? He must. Right? Steve glances back over to make sure Billy is still there (that he hasn't disappeared into thin air. Isn't a hallucination), to find him making a face. Like he wants to say something but isn't.   
  
Steve doesn't ask. He’s too tired to deal with it.   
  
"I need more sleep." He declares blandly.   
  
"So fucking sleep then?"  
  
Steve shoots him an unimpressed look that Billy returns. Steve wishes he would either enter the room or leave, he doesn’t like things lingering in doorways. Annoyed, he rises to his feet and retrieves the laptop from the desk adjust the alarms. The clock tells him he wasn’t asleep for long before Billy woke him. Still, there was no way is he trusting someone he doesn’t know, who may also still be a figment of his stressed mind, to wake him up timely.  
  
Billy pushes off the doorjamb.  
  
Steve opens the laptop.   
  
"What is that?" Billy frowns as he stalks closer. He left the door wide open behind him too, Steve notes in displeasure.   
  
Steve blinks at him, "Uh- a laptop?"   
  
"A what?"  
  
"A computer."  
  
They stare at each other.  
  
"Bullshit it is," Billy scoffs.

They blink at each other. Billy glaring daggers like he expects Steve is trying to trick him or something. He shrugs in face of the hostility. It’s just a laptop dude. They stare at each other more.

“Could you, like, get out?” Steve inquires with a raised eyebrow, “I’ll be up in a few hours. We can talk then if you want.” Billy scowls and stomps out of the room. He leaves the door open behind him. Its not just Steve's poor communication abilities he decides, the guys is kind of an asshole.


	24. (Post 24) Chapter 16

Steve Harrington is sleeping upstairs.   
  
Billy's in a house he can’t escape after having been skewered by some kind of demon alien. He rubs his stomach absentmindedly. No scar. Nothing. Like it never happened. _Heather_. Jesus Christ. He hopes Max got out okay. He can hear her yelling, _screaming_ his name, when he closes his eyes.   
  
Part of him seriously wonders if this isn't a very strange purgatory. Fuck, maybe its hell.

With the things he’s done now- Billy closes his eyes and tries to push the images away. His hand comes up to grasp at his silver cross still dangling around his neck. He has to believe there’s a way out of here. He has to.   
  
Although if this is his purgatory, he has no idea why Steve Harrington, a guy he'd only seen in faded pictures and who has been missing for over a year, is here too. Steve Harrington. He doesn't know why that name has stuck with him. But it has. Maybe it has something to do with how his face is still plastered all around the school in missing posters. Billy knows himself well enough to realize the pretty face had something to do with it to. 

But if he’s honest Steve Harrington is a ghosted that has dogged his footstep at Hawkins High since he’d crossed its threshold. His presence had lingered there in subtly and unspoken ways. A desk in the back of every class that was deliberately kept open, shared looks on the court when basketball practice met, and those fucking posters that were all around town. It had been infuriating. Billy had thought when he’d entered Hawkins High that he’d been stealing his crown from some low level chump or that there had never been anyone running the school in the first place. But Steve Harrington was a legend and in his absence he became impossible to truly remove. That he couldn’t face Harrington, _prove_ his superiority, had been maddening.

And now somehow, he is stuck in this inescapable hell house with the supposedly year dead King of Hawkins. King Steve.

And there's something weird about the guy. Something beyond the obvious hygiene issues- guy seriously needs to shower. The way he clings to that freaky nailed bat is vaguely …unsettling. His face is not any less attractive in person either unfortunately.   
  
While King Steve sleeps the fucking day away Billy continues his investigations of this weird ass house. Frowning, Billy pulls open the curtains in the living room window and takes a good look at the outside for the first time. A lawn of dull faded grass, not dead, but like the color had come in wrong. There was a cracked and broken driveway of which he made a mental notes. Harrington might have given up escaping this place but Billy isn't so ready to lie down. The driveway winds until it disappears into a dark forest of thick evergreen trees. There are no neighboring houses anywhere in sight. It doesn’t look like Hawkins to Billy.

There is something fundamentally wrong with this house.

Beyond the monsters or whatever Steve claims are here. (A week or so ago, Billy wouldn't have believed such a thing. Now, having been _possessed_ and forced to – well, he’s having to reevaluate what is possible.) But Billy can't put his finger on what exactly is _wrong_ with it.  
  
Something about the whole place just feels- weird.

Then there was that thing, the ‘laptop’. Tiny and sleek and thinner altogether than just a keyboard should be. Billy's house has never had a computer, too expensive, but he's seen them before and they look nothing like that. Curiosity wars with the low level headache he’s been sporting for hours.

Fuck it.

Billy goes up the stairs and retrieves the ‘laptop’. Steve is snuggling up to that bat of his quietly snoring. Billy refuses to find it endearing.

Back in the living room he examines the thing more closely. It’s incredibly light. The outer casing feels metallic. Billy pulls the two halves open awkwardly and the inner screen emits a bright glow. Even the keyboard itself is glowing- just a black screen with a clock. At the first touch of a key however the black screen slid aside to reveal a sort of generic picture with some symbols on the bottom. None of it meant anything to Billy. How were you supposed to use the thing? What did Steve even do on this? Annoyed that it was beyond his understanding Billy closed the ‘laptop’ and put it on the coffee table.

It was only an hour or so later that Billy could hear Steve walking around upstairs. His footsteps patter down the steps quickly. Billy leans back on the couch, arms behind his head, as the guy skids into the living room.

“They took the laptop. It’s missing!” Steve tells him with an ashen face. His slightly greasy hair a tousled mess.

Billy nods lazily to where the closed laptop now sits, “It’s right there.”

“Oh.” The guy breaths in surprise. “I could have sworn I-” he cut himself off with the shake of his head, “Thank you.”

Billy shrugged, unwilling to admit he’d taken it only to have the things had bested him. Still he watches closely as Steve huffs a breath, sits down, and opens the computer. A thought occurs to him. Billy considers Steve as he types away on the computer thing. He has tried taking this house apart to no avail but Steve himself might hold clues on how to get the fuck out of here.

“How did you get here?” Billy demands.

Steve frowns and looks at him. “I came down the stairs?”

Billy rolls his eyes, “I mean in this house, dumbass.”

“I don’t know.” He replies, eyes back on the computer as he types.

He can feel his fingers tighten in frustration at the guy’s blasé attitude. “What do you mean you don’t know?”

“I mean I don’t know.”

“Well, what were you doing before you got here then!” He demands in a voice just shy of a yell. He can see the way Steve’s shoulders start to raise and tries to take a breath. He must be stuck with the one person in the world who would decided he’d just rather stay locked in the crazy house full of potentially deadly monsters.

“What were _you_ doing before you got here?” Steve countered with a pointed look.

Billy clenched his jaw and said nothing.

Steve hums softly and Billy almost punches him. He closes the computer and looks at Billy, tapping a finger thoughtfully. He sighs, “Look, I really don’t remember. I think- I think I might have been outside by the pool. It was sunrise...or. no." He frowned in concentration feeling his head pound, "Maybe sunset? I don't- But I don’t remember anything after that…sorry.” Then he stands and heads off to the kitchen.

Billy bites back frustration, pinches his arm to stop his fucking watery eyes, curses, and follows after. The guy can’t cook for shit and he’s hungry.


	25. (Post 25) Update I guess?

Hey, sorry its been awhile.

Thank you guys for still reaching out to me I guess.

The guy - Billy- is, i dont know. it's a lot. he's a lot. Kind of an asshole. Maybe ive just lost the motivation myself. Still, I guess he's not the worst new thing that could have appeared. Hes weirdlt cagey about my laptop but he somehow manages to make decent food here so thats a plus. I'll try I guess. To work with him or whatever.

Calabaza I took your advice and checked out the closet. The mountain of dirt is still on the floor and the inside is filthy but no holes or anything. No idea how he got inside. Or where the dirt came from.

On top of Billy's arrival things have been crazy here. I feel like everything ramping up or something. The monsters are more agitated. They come more often. I think I have started to see some in my dreams. Maybe its because theres someone else in the house now? So they feel they need to ramp it up to compensate? I don’t know. I have nightmares almost every night now. I just have this feeling I have to make a choice. And like I have to make it soon. But I dont know which way to go.Sometimes I feel like my heads being torn in half. I've started ggetting nose bleeds when I wake up too. 

Nancy or Nellie? I don't know. Any thoughts?


	26. (Post 26) Chapter 17

Now that there is someone else around besides Steve it is easier to notice how time seems to slip by in strange ways here. It feels like Billy has been here for a week and also possibly a month, simultaneously. Days blur together and he thinks he would have lost all sense of time entirely if it weren’t for his journal entries.

All in all Billy makes for a tumultuous house guest. His moods are often volatile although his initial frantic panic to escape seems to have calmed at least a little. Steve has been taking careful study, trying to feel out the topics that are most likely to cause violent reactions. It’s sort of like what he imagines feeling out landmines might be like. However trigger happy Billy can be at times, Steve ultimately decides he does prefer it to being alone. He does not say this out loud. He doesn’t think Billy would appreciate the sentiment.

One of the interesting things he’s learned about Billy is that he has nightmares. Vivid, violent nightmares. This is familiar as Steve himself often has them himself and had even started getting nosebleeds when he wakes. Still, being on the outside looking in is a strange experience for him.

He remembers it had been after a surprisingly restful nap. Steve had woken to the chiming of an alarm and felt good enough to pull up AO3 and write another journal entry. He wrote up a journal entry and had been about to start checking if other sites had magically started working when the air had been pierced by a scream. He’d nearly thrown the laptop against the wall in surprise and did manage to lightly graze his knee with one of the nails of his bat as he ran from the room.

Billy had been thrashing on the couch.

There had been no monsters in sight. It hadn’t been after five yet anyway. Steve had forced a breath through his nose to calm his racing heart and decided it must just be a nightmare.

Billy had not taken well to being woken, throwing a punch that very nearly gave Steve a black eye. Then the guy had taken a shuddering breath and started to cry. Silent tears streaking down his face and he’d hunched into himself, covering his face with his hands. Steve had reached out a hand for his shoulder that was immediately shrugged off. “Fuck off Harrington!” He’d growled.

“I mean, are you sure? Are you okay?”

“Fuck off!” He’d screamed jerking his hands from his face for just a moment. His eyes red rimmed and furious.

Steve had twisted his hands together, not quite sure what to do. When he has a nightmare he usually just lay there until all feeling drained away from him leaving him numb and cold. But it had felt weird to contemplate just, leaving and let that happen. On the other hand, Steve knew he would be embarrassed if Billy had found him crying after a nightmare. So, he had concluded, that Billy probably wanted some space.

“I’ll be right back.” He’d said softly which had garnered no reply. Steve had headed into the kitchen and fixed up two warm mugs. He’d brought them back into the living room with him and nudged one against Billy’s hands until he removed it from his face to grasp the handle. In the time he’d been gone Billy had wiped off his face and was staring at the palms of his hands.

Steve had sat on the floor by the couch, well out of reaching range, and taken a pointed sip.

When Billy eventually took a sip of his own he sputtered, snapping out of his daze to glare at Steve. “What the fuck is this?”

Steve had shrugged and taken another sip from his own mug. “Honey water. Don’t have any hot coco or tea.”

“Jesus.” He’d shaken his head disparagingly but Steve thought he looked a little better at least. He’d counted it as a win when Billy had taken another sip of the warm honey water.

The other interesting things he’s discovered of the past few days is that Billy likes to read, _a lot_. A few days after the nightmare incident he’d watched Billy examine the large bookcase in the living room Steve has not read any of the books on the things stuffed shelves. He knows he's not a very good reader- or writer for that matter. He'd tried a few times in the beginning, desperate in his boredom, but Molly always shows up when he tries to read any kind of book or article. The words start to shift or he doesn’t understand or he has to read a page over again and then she starts laughing. If he keeps pushing forward eventually she starts throwing stuff. Short things- the back of food packages, and his own journal entries don't seem to be the same kind of trigger for whatever reason.   
  
Billy on the other hand seems to be an avid reader. Billy runs a hand down book spines like a caress, bending to carefully check each of the shelves, searching for a new book. Steve knows for a fact he’d just finished some other book yesterday. Eventually Billy picks a book from a shelf, The Picture of Dorian Gray, and throws himself across the couch.   
  
Still standing awkwardly in the middle of the room Billy looks up at him an expression halfway between curiosity and suspicion, "you’re not ganna read anything? You’re the one who wants to give up and just sit around here for eternity."   
  
Steve shrugs noncommittally. 

Steve has also discovered that Molly doesn’t appear when Billy reads. Steve’s not sure what that means but it feels unfair.

“Would you- ” Steve trailed off.

Billy glanced at him over the edge of the worn cover. “Would I what?” He asked in a tight voice.

Steve shook his head. “Nevermind,” He muttered.

It was quiet for a few more minutes. Steve contemplated getting up to find the deck of cards again. He could play a few rounds of solitaire while Billy read. Maybe convince him to put down the book eventually and Steve could play something new. Steve was terrible at poker but it would be fucking worth losing to do something different.

While he was stirring the energy to get off the couch, he heard Billy mutter what he thought was "Jesus fuck," and then he began to read aloud in a quiet but even voice, “The studio was filled with the rich odor of roses…”

Steve sits down and closes his eyes and just- listens.

It’s become part of a new routine.

They hold up together in one of the spare bedrooms at night, then go their separate ways come morning. Steve does his cursory check of doors and windows while Billy cooks. They eat breakfast dinner and Steve will check the laptop while Billy naps. Billy will then read out loud in the living room for a while until Steve drifts off. They eat again and it’s back to the bedroom to barricade themselves in.

Steve lays on the floor with a pile of blankets, bat beside him, and let’s Billy’s voice wash over him from the couch. Steve always stutters over his words when he has to read out loud but Billy’s voice is steady and sure. They are still working their way slowly through a Picture of Dorian Gray. Then, Billy’s voice trails to a jerky stop. Steve frowns, open’s his eyes, and looks up over at Billy’s upside-down form. He’s frowning a little at the book. “What’s up?” He asks in a groggy voice.

Billy squints at the page for a moment, flicking forward a page, then back. “I’ve read this book before.”

“Oh, well you can pick something else out if you like.” Steve doesn’t care. The writing is kind of dense and confusing to him anyway.

“No, I mean. I’ve read this book before and I don’t remember this sentence.”

Steve can barely recall the basic plot of any books he’s ever read but…”Do you usually remember every sentence you’ve ever read?” He wonders honestly.

Billy clenches his jaw, “I would have remembered this.” He hesitates for a moment, eyes flickering to Steve before focusing back on the book and he reads, “It is quite true that I have worshipped you with far more romance of feeling than a man usually gives to a friend. Somehow, I had never loved a woman. I suppose I never had time.” Then he stops reading again, staring at the page.

Steve blinks. His mind is far too tired to try decoding Billy speak now. The passage does stir something in his own memory though, foggy and hazy in his mind. “Same Basil. Same,” He yawns and closes his eyes. He can feel Billy staring at him but whatever his issue it it’s just going to have to wait until after a nap. He’s exhausted. And he's finally gotten to the point where he knows Billy will wake him up when he needs to. 

Everything fades away.

He stands before himself in a void of black and knows he must be dreaming. “I’m dreaming. You’re not here.” He tells himself.

The other him tilts his head slightly and grins eerily with far too many teeth. “You really are an idiot Steve. I told you already. You can’t escape me. Doesn’t matter if you’re dreaming or not. I am always here." He circles himself with predatory steps, "It is interesting to see how your pathetic weakness has now managed to drag someone else down with you.” He laughs darkly. 

A girl with brown hair stands before him with angry watery eyes. She smacks him across the face, “What is wrong with you?” A warm hand on his shoulder, “It will get better. We just have to hang on.” The images overlap, blurring and pushing against each other. They should not exist together. Not at the same time. His head is screaming. Then it fades away and it’s just him and himself again.

His chest is burning like he can't breath, “What’s that supposed to mean?" He demands, "I’m not responsible for bringing him here.”

“Aren’t you? Well, maybe not. But you could let him out and you won’t.”

“The fuck are you talking about? You’re the ones keeping us here!”

The other him hums bemusedly, “I think you’re a _liar_ and a _coward_." He steps forward till they are nose to nose, "Go ahead and run Steve. Sooner or later, you’re going to jump. Jump or you fall, you always do.” 


	27. (Post 27) Billy hates the laptop

hi. again. everyone. 

Thank you all for still commenting on here. Even with someone actually here now it's noice to know there are more people out there.

So Billy is maybe less of an asshole then I thought? Or maybe he's like, still an asshole, but not all that bad, yeah know? maybe he's just calmed down a bit. he's taken to reading out loud in the livingroom sometimes and that's- nice. I don't know. yeah, it's nice. even with the sense of impending doom that's been hanging around lately.

Norastears, I did try and get Billy to type something on here, showed him your comments and stuff, although i didn't really let him read my journal stuff since i know its mostly garbage. I think he hates the laptop though. not really sure what's going on there but he gives distrustful looks everytime im on it in his sight. his expression is kind of funny though. He says it gives him a headache. Which I guess is fair. there are days it gives me a heaache too. thought that was just a me thing though. I mean there are days I can't evn remember how it works but - i dont know.

Calabaza, I did try to talk to Billy about Nancy and Nellie. he wasn't very helpful. just kind of shrugged and said neither name rang any bells with him.

I feel like- I feel like theres something just out of my head. something just out of reach. jesus, i dont know what the fuck im taking about. It's just realy bthering me and the more I think about those too the worse my headaches get. their not meant to go together and but there are stuck no top o each other in my brain.I dont kow. I dont know which one to choose. Can't you guys just tell me which one I should choose? 

Nancy

Nellie

Nancy

Nellie

Nancy

Nellie

ᶰNͣᶰeͨʸllie


	28. (Post 28) Chapter 18

Billy is cooking again. Even if Steve had decided he couldn’t appreciate Billy’s company it would have been worth making friends with him just for the food. Steve hasn’t eaten so well in all his memory and Billy never seems to run out of interesting combinations even with the limited ingredients he has available here. He tries to imagine what Billy must be like in a kitchen of his own making, with all the ingredients he wants at his fingertips.

Guilt twists in his stomach vaguely and he has to wonder if he really is somehow keeping Billy here. He never talks about it but Steve knows he worries for his sister. That he’s still desperate to get out of this house. There’s a rage that burns in him, a determination that Steve hasn’t felt himself in a long time if, he ever had it at all.. And the more he gets to know Billy the more Steve sort of wants him to succeeded...to be happy. That's normal he thinks. Billy's been with him in the house for what? Has to have been at least a few months now. It's not strange that Steve's grown attached to the only other person here. He wonders if that makes him a bad person- that he doesn't want to be alone again. He's reaching out a hand before he really knows what he intends to do with it; grab Billy's shoulder? His hand? Thread their fingers together?

In the corner of the room, just on the edge of his vision, a vivid black shape flickers.

Oh god.

He fumbles for his bat. He left it on the counter to watch Billy’s chopping technique. 

Billy turns to follow his jerky movement, “What the fuck-” he starts incredulously as Steve catches the edge of his shoulder and the chopped vegetables scatter across the floor. Billy starts to turn and he has to see it now- looming there.

“Don’t look at it!” Steve snaps.

But it’s too late.

The feeling is almost indescribable. Like being caught in the things gravity well, Steve’s eyes are drawn towards it even as his fingers curl around the studded bat. He can hear Billy next to him sucking in a shaky breath.

Tongue heavy, Steve nervously adjusted his grip on his bat.

It shouldn’t be out. It’s not past five.

Now that Steve is looking he can’t look away. His eyes are fixed on the thing. In the doorway it stands, taller than he has ever seen it. Its head nearly touching the ceiling, its limbs all disproportionally thin and seemingly made out of pure darkness. It stands with its back to him like it always fucking does. It doesn’t do anything. It doesn’t move. And Steve- he _hates_ it. Hates it so much. He feels like he’s drowning whenever he sees it but it is so, so, so hard to look away.

He should do something but he can’t move. He’s going to be stuck looking at it for hours. Hours, and hours, and hours. Always, always following him. His chest aches so badly and he should do something. Do something but he can’t think of what. A hand closes around his wrist and yanks him sideways.

Billy.

The bat clatters to the floor as Billy pulls him away and up the stairs.

The spare bedroom.

Steve feels his legs give out. He curls up on the floor in the center of the room.

Fuck.

God.

Billy's now familiar presence lingers beside him.

Steve focuses on trying to breathe, on getting the shaking under control.

Billy doesn't touch him, which is good because Steve feels like he can't control what his body might do if it's touched right now, but his quiet presence is grounding. Steve doesn’t feel so much like he's about to slip off the face of the earth into the void. Eventually he feels himself start to sag, muscles releasing from the tension. Slowly he shifts, ever so slowly, giving plenty of time for Billy to move away. He doesn’t. And suddenly Steve's leaning his head against Billy's lap. Billy doesn’t react except to go stiff for a brief moment but he keeps breathing evenly into the quiet. The silence feels peaceful now rather than suffocating.

When the haze of panic begins to lift an idle thought drifts across his mind about how this mirrors that night a few weeks back when Billy had had that nightmare. Mostly he begins thinking about how he wants to curl deeper against Billy’s warmth.

The soothing quiet lingers until his chest is no longer heaving.

He wants to say thank you. Thank you for not leaving me. What comes out of his dumb mouth is, “Dinner’s probably burned.”  
  
Billy shoves him very lightly in the shoulder, "Go take a damn shower Harrington. You smell. I’ll go fucking fix dinner. _Again_."  
  
He ducks his head to hide his smile. "Fuck you." He replies, forcing himself to stand on still watery knees. He’s so tired that the bathroom barely makes his heart race. It will take awhile before the ability to panic returns even with his bat missing ,so Steve soaps himself and shampoos his hair quickly and efficiently. When he emerges from the bathroom just a few moments later in the warm sweatpants and soft shirt he’d grabbed beforehand, Billy shoves him onto the bed. “Wha-”

“We are going to sleep Steve. Here,” Billy pushes a warm bowl into his hands.

It’s bowl of soup. It’s orange and a little tangy smelling. Steve eats it a little automatically. Billy wants him to sleep? But it’s night. Steve _never_ sleeps at night. Good way to get ambushed and attacked by fucking monsters.

When his bowl is empty Billy takes it and Steve goes to stand. Billy pushes him back down his one hand. “Stay.” He commands and places the bowls on the empty desk. Deliberately Billy flicks the lock, looking at Steve while he does it, to prove the door has been locked, then shoves the heavy chest behind it too. All the lamps in the room are switched on. Billy presses Steve’s bat into his hands. He must have retrieved it from the kitchen.

Then Billy lays down on the other side of the bed.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Steve lies down too so they are parallel but not touching. 

“I fucking hate Max.” Billy says suddenly, unprompted into the quiet. They aren’t looking at each other but they are close enough that Steve can feel Billy’s warmth sinking into the blankets. He breaths very carefully and says nothing. “I, I fucking hare her. Her and Susan and my fucking dad. But I don’t want her dead. I told you there was crazy shit going on in Hawkins. Part of it got in my head somehow. I. There was this thing, and it got inside me. It made me- I think I fucking- killed people.” Gently Steve moved his hand to grasp Billy’s wrist. He keeps his eyes on the ceiling. He knows somehow that looking at Billy now will only make the vulnerability unbearable. In a jerky, watery voice Billy continues to speak, “I don’t remember everything. But I was in the mall and that giant monster was there and I could hear Max screaming and _I don’t even know what fucking happened._ ” 

They lay in silence for a while. Somehow Steve’s hold of Billy’s wrist shifts until their fingers are tangled together.

They doze in and out.

Despite how warm and comfortable his body has become Steve’s mind races as morning begins to draw nearer. There is some desperate part of him that wants to keep this, just how it is. And he is- afraid. But if there is a chance of getting Billy out of here, getting him back to his sister, then Steve has to take it doesn’t he? He let’s go of Billy’s hand. “I think there might be a way to get you out.”

“What?” Billy bolts upright, staring into him.

Steve licks his lips and tries to swallow, his mouth suddenly very dry, “It’s just an idea. I don’t know if it will actually work.”

“We can get out of here? Why the fuck didn’t you say anything-”

“You can. Maybe. Not me.”

“Why the fuck not?” Billy is scowling, dangerous anger lingering in his face.

“Because I think- I think there might be a way out thought the basement.”

“So what’s the fucking problem?”

Steve gestures impatiently at the air, “You saw for yourself ok. It’s fucking flooded.”

“Steve what is your fucking point? If there might be a way out down there then why don’t we both just-”

A wave of hopeless frustration runs through him, “Because I can’t fucking swim! So even if the thing _is_ fucking telling the truth, and there’s no way to know that it is, there is no way _I_ can get out of the fucking house! Because I will fucking drown!”

Billy’s ice blue eyes are piercing when he leans over him. Jaw set, eye’s blazing, and he really is something. “Fuck it.” He growls. Then his lips are on Steve’s. A fierce, angry, burning kiss for just a moment before he pulls back and glares into Steve's eyes. “I was a fucking lifeguard. I won’t let you drown. Got it?” He hisses at him.


	29. (Post 29) Maybe A Way Out

Hey guys, I don't know whether or not this will be my last entry here. Billy and I are going to try something next cycle and we might be able to get out. the basement to this house is completely flooded but i think there might eb a way out down there. I cant swim but Billy ssays he was a life guard and he wont let me drown. I'm not sure what's going to happen - if ill still be able to reach this site if we get out or maybe ill just die attempting it. maybe there will be nothing down there at all and we'll both die. but we're going to try anywai I guess. I don’t know if it will work but either way, I think this will be my last journal entery.

I wanted to answer everything everyone said when you all were nice enough to answer me.

Your_Moon_Queen, i dont think i can combine them. they feel fundamentaly opposed. like they dont belong together. El feels sort of familiar but in a vaguer, unconnectd type of way? does that make sense?

Norastears, I dont know what's going on with Molly. youre right that she is the only one who consistntly shows up during the day and mostly when i try and read. she just doesn't seem to care when Billy reads. Come to think of it i don't know if any of the monsters here have ever manifested around Billy without me being around...i dont know what that might mean. or maybe i do and just dont like the thought of it. i dont know if i want to bring that up with him or not. 

Calabaza, i dont know what will happe if i choose but i think- i think im going to have to now. think im out of time really. dont know which one makes me less scared. or both of them scare me for different reasons? the fear feels different between them.

Nancy feels like...loss? disappointment? but mostly, i dont know why, the panic of being hunted?

Nellie feels more like, like loneliness i guess. defeat. numbness.

I'm going to try and be on the laptop until we are ready to try. I think I can answer comments directly, not sure why i havent before, but i'll do that if you guys hve any more questiosn for me. In case this is the end, thank you all for responding to me. im not good at words as im sure you can tell but its meant a lot to me. thank you


	30. (Post 30) Chapter 19- Nellie

They looked at each other. Billy takes a step forward and opens the basement door. The putrid black water still laps against the decaying stairs. Steve clutches his bat closer. The cold seeps out like opening the door to a freezer.

Billy is looking at him with an unreadable face. “We doing this?”

Steve swallows and nods before he can change his mind.

“Then lets go.”

They edge together toward the entrance. It’s a tight fit to try and squeeze in at the same time but if he lets Billy go first he doesn’t think he’ll be able to make himself follow. It has to be now. Together. They sit awkwardly together on the lip, their legs dangling into the void of black. Steve places the bat down beside him and makes his fingers release their hold. “Ready?” Billy asks like he hadn’t just basically asked that a minute ago.

“Yes. Why? You scared?” Steve can’t help but huff unconvincingly. He is absolutely terrified.

“Fuck you Harrington.” Billy shoves his shoulder gently.

Then they step into the dark water. The smell is absolutely horrendous. Billy keeps a tight grip on his arm, fingers digging in just enough to hurt. Steve doesn’t tell him to let up. Another step, and another, the water rising up their legs, until it seems the rest of the stairs has rotted away and they have to splash forward. Billy raps an arm around under Steve’s arms and pulls him close. The water laps right around them as they struggle out into open water. Steve flaps at the water, trying not to panic, trying not to hinder Billy's powerful strokes and kicks.

Waves flick up around them. Higher and higher.

"Fuck," Billy sputters.

The darkness around them is complete. There is no light, not even from where Steve was sure the stairs had been and the basement door they had left open behind them.

"Oh god." Steve clutched at Billy with all his might as the waves crest around them, buffering them around like the open sea.

"Hold on." Billy commands.

Frigid water breaks over their heads and they are pulled into darkness together.

_Nellie_

Then the universe shuttered-shattered- splintered-

Steve is so popular. So alone.   
He sits alone in a school where no one knows him. He throws massive parties every weekend as a fuck you to his parents and basks in the attention. There’s a boy who is always by his side. A boy he's known since they were both toddlers and at one time they had had sleepovers together. Fallen asleep together holding hands. They don't do that anymore but the boy is always by his side. In the dark one night their hands meet again. The party is long over, no one else is around and Steve’s heart races. He kisses him.   
  
In the doorway stands his father. He wasn't supposed to be home. He’s never home. But he watches from the doorway for just a frozen moment before he stalks forward and grabs the boy by his shoulder. He is lead away from Steve but goes willingly enough. The last shared glance a look unreadable.   
  
Steve can’t even find it in him to stammer excuses, just watches as his father hands the boy a stack of bills from his wallet then leans in close, whispering warnings Steve can’t hear. Then the boy is gone. Steve does not see him again. He is pulled from school and transferred to a catholic academy where he is given extra prayers and teachers to watch his every move.   
  
Steve has no friends at school.   
They've all picked up on the warning looks from the teachers and none of the kids here are interested in instinctive rebellion.   
  
He doesn’t really know Nellie either.   
  
Just another girl.   
  
But she's nice to him at least. Talks to him a few times in the hallways. The only student to do so. She tells him things will get better. People like them won’t always be stuck in a place like this. Then one day the whole school is pulled into the gymnasium and told there has been a terrible accident. _Accident_ they say but Steve had seen how everyone here treated her. Accident. School is closed. Steve goes home to an empty house.

…

In another place, Nancy Wheeler stands over a graveyard. For a recent high school graduate she has been standing over them quite frequently over the last few years. It’s a warm day for the season but Nancy just feels cold. The haunting aching cold that’s been following all of them lately. Those who knew the truth behind Hawkins facade. The whole gang has fucking group field trips to the cemetery these days. That’s how _wrong_ everything is.

Steve Harrington’s headstone is large. Beautiful marble. There are burned down candles, withered flowers, and slowly rotting pictures left over from the last school memorial. All placed by people who barely knew him.

Nancy had been so certain. So very certain that- that there was more to- to _this_ then they had known. That Steve was a victim of the Upside Down like the rest of them. Like Will.

When he’d vanished- she hadn’t know what to think. The worry and fear had consumed her, and then she’d been sucked into the truth about what had happened to Will. Will had been missing for days. Weeks. Except he wasn’t just missing- he had been _taken_. And they had gotten Will back alive. Nancy had believed, _believed_ in her soul that, the same was possible for Steve. Taken, like Will. And she would find him. Bring him home. To her.

Nancy stares until her eyes lose focus. She doesn’t blink. If she blinks – it just feels bad.

Part of her still feels like there’s been a mistake. Another cover up they’ve missed. That there’s vengeance, _justice_ that needs to be served. That Steve deserves. That even if- even _if_ Steve was gone, this wasn’t what everyone was saying it was. Steve had been stolen. Snatched. Taken. He hadn’t, he hadn’t _left_.

She could feel Eleven, Jane, come up beside her. She too stares at Steve’s headstone. Off several rows over Nancy could hear Barb murmuring gently to a quietly crying Max. Jonathan, Will and Joyce stand even farther off, huddled together before a different stone.

The theory, how fucked up was it that after all this time all they had was a _theory_ , the theory was that Steve’s body had been caught somehow in the rift of the gates opening. Not in the Upside Down, not in reality either. Just- stuck in the crack between. It wasn’t until Jane had closed the final gate that Steve’s body had somehow _dislodged_ from where it had been stuck. God the thought made her sick. Imagining – seeing in her mind even though she hadn’t been there when it happened, seeing Steve’s lifelessly body flop horribly back in to reality at the bottom of the drained Harrington swimming pool.

An accident.

That’s what they were calling it.

After two years Nancy had thought she might even be ready to accept the possibility that Steve was dead. But not like this.

Not an ‘ _accident_ ’.

Nancy hadn’t seen- seen the body. But apparently there had been no scratches, no bites, nothing. Not a bruise on his body. He hadn’t been torn apart like she’d so often see when she tried to sleep at night. He hadn’t starved to death either as she had worried about during the waking hours- Steve trapped in the dark of the Upside Down wasting away.

They’d had to do a fucking autopsy because they weren’t actually _sure_ how he had died.

Drowning.

That was the conclusion.

Steve Harrington had apparently fallen into the pool or gone back for another swim after everyone had gone home and just- drowned.

An accident.

Nancy can’t ignore the horrible feeling in her gut that that wasn’t what this was at all. And she can’t escape the thoughts that have been circling through her thoughts since the night Steve had disappeared- if she’d stayed instead of going home in an angry huff, certain he had just left her there alone, would Steve still be here? If she had gotten up in the middle of the night would she have been able to save him? Steve had been a fantastic swimmer, how could have just drowned?

…

They are lying at the bottom of a drained swimming pool. The sky above them is so bright it burns Steve’s eyes. It is so warm. The burning heat of the sun beams down on him and he’d forgotten what it felt like until that moment.

It takes a long time for either of them to move. When they final crawl up the ladder their met with a view through the backdoor into a familiar kitchen. They look at each other. Neither of them keen on going back into the house, they set off on a walk. Steve knows these roads. Remembers growing up on them. Running through the back woods and racing along street corners. The memories clear and beautiful in his mind.

Bill trails beside him, fingers laced with his hand, quiet and wide eyed.

It doesn’t take them long to reach downtown even walking as they are. They pass a woman talking quickly into her cellphone, some kid with curly hair sat on a bench playing some mobile game, an elderly guy jogging slowly with a pair of airpods in. It all feels so familiar. So right. How could Steve ever have forgotten this?

Steve even has money in his pockets.

They stop into a McDonalds and get shakes.

“Billy!” a voice calls out.

Steve looks around just as Billy does to catch sight of a red haired girl pushing through the door and running up to their table. Half her head is shaved and she’s sporting serious eyeliner and a worn skater jacket. The girl throws herself at Billy who blinks with a stunned expression on his face. “Max?” He asks in a shaken voice.

“There you are! I’ve been waiting at moms’ house for hours!” She catches sight of Steve sitting across the table, pulls back from Billy and slaps him hard in the arm. “Were you ignoring me so you could bang your boyfriend in secret?!”

“What?” Billy croaks softly enough that Max doesn’t appear to hear him. She rounds on Steve instead who has his milkshake frozen halfway to his face.

“Who are you then?” She demands, hands on her hips as she runs an unimpressed eye over him.

“Steve. Harrington.” He blinks.

“Ok, Steve. Just so you know, you break his heart, I’ll break your _head_.” She tells him. “He’s enough of a douchebag when he’s not moping so you’re responsible for that shit.”

Billy doesn’t appear to have heard a word as he stares at Max.

Boyfriend. Steve doesn’t know if that’s what they are but he still nods in agreement.

Satisfied she’d made her point clear Max turns back to Billy. She tries to snag his milkshake from the table and Billy pushes her off seemingly on autopilot. “Did you get it then?” She demands with a bit of a pout.

“Get what?” Billy blinks, still looking a little dazed.

Max rolls her eyes. “The apartment?” She pauses then turns back and glances at Steve. Steve can feel his cheeks warming for no explicable reason and a sly grin appears on Max’s face. She raises an eyebrow at him and he can feel his face flush.

Billy blinks for a moment, then frowns and puts a hand into his jean jacket. He pulls out a key.

“Oh, you did get it! Shall we go check it out then? I want to see.” Max says more then asks standing back up.

“Sure.” Steve agrees, standing too. Billy is still staring at Max like he can’t believe she’s real but he grabs hold of Steve’s hand again. Together the three of them head out of the door.


	31. (Post 30) Chapter 19- Nancy (Alternative Ending)

They looked at each other. Billy takes a step forward and opens the basement door. The putrid black water still laps against the decaying stairs. Steve clutches his bat closer. The cold seeps out like opening the door to a freezer.

Billy is looking at him with an unreadable face. “We doing this?”

Steve swallows and nods before he can change his mind.

“Then lets go.”

They edge together toward the entrance. It’s a tight fit to try and squeeze in at the same time but if he lets Billy go first he doesn’t think he’ll be able to make himself follow. It has to be now. Together. They sit awkwardly together on the lip, their legs dangling into the void of black. Steve places the bat down beside him and makes his fingers release their hold. “Ready?” Billy asks like he hadn’t just basically asked that a minute ago.

“Yes. Why? You scared?” Steve can’t help but huff unconvincingly. He is absolutely terrified.

“Fuck you Harrington.” Billy shoves his shoulder gently.

Then they step into the dark water. The smell is absolutely horrendous. Billy keeps a tight grip on his arm, fingers digging in just enough to hurt. Steve doesn’t tell him to let up. Another step, and another, the water rising up their legs, until it seems the rest of the stairs has rotted away and they have to splash forward. Billy raps an arm around under Steve’s arms and pulls him close. The water laps right around them as they struggle out into open water. Steve flaps at the water, trying not to panic, trying not to hinder Billy's powerful strokes and kicks.

Waves flick up around them. Higher and higher.

"Fuck," Billy sputters.

The darkness around them is complete. There is no light, not even from where Steve was sure the stairs had been and the basement door they had left open behind them.

"Oh god." Steve clutched at Billy with all his might as the waves crest around them, buffering them around like the open sea.

"Hold on." Billy commands.

Frigid water breaks over their heads and they are pulled into darkness together.

_Nancy_

Then the universe shuttered-shattered- splintered-

Steve is so popular. So alone.   
He sits alone in a school where no one knows him. He throws massive parties every weekend as a fuck you to his parents and basks in the attention. Nancy had been a bright sun in the constant gloom that surrounded him. Smart. So smart in a way that was almost stunning to Steve. She was beautiful in her kindness. He had scarcely believed it when she’d let him spend time with her.

He’d thrown a party to impress her because that’s all he really knows how to do. Show off the big empty house he sometimes feels like he lives in alone.

He liked watching her laugh.

They’d kissed that night, after everyone left. Steve enjoyed kissing, it was other things he sometimes had issues with. Usually he tried to force himself through it because he knew there would be gossip if Steve tried to put it off. But Nancy wasn’t like that- they kissed and curled up together in bed just to sleep.

Uneasy thoughts had dogged at him though so he’d left her there alone. He just, needed to pick up the trash they had left everywhere. His parents were supposed to be home sometime shortly and he couldn’t remember that day and he’d already deleted the message off the answering machine. In the cool evening air Steve had gathered up empty cans. Finished but mind still spinning Steve sat himself on the edge of the diving board and let his feet skim the surface of the water. Then the pool light had flickered off. There had been an inhuman screech that sent shivers down his spine. Something had grabbed his leg and pulled.

The water was gone and something monstrous was ripping at him. Steve clung to the pool ladder desperately. He screamed but no one answered. With all his strength he had hauled himself away from the thing clawing at him, breaking the surface of water that had not been there to see a set of wooden stairs. The basement of a house he would be in for a long, long time.

...

In another place Steve Harrington is found floating in his family’s backyard swimming pool. He’s been dead for several days by the time his parents come home and find him. A horrible, horrible accident. A _tragedy_ the town proclaims. A closed casket funeral is held open to the public. His teachers come, give speeches about what a good and proper boy he was. Devout, a true believer despite his young age, and certainly now in the hands of the lord.

Nellie Buckley, still stuck in a wheelchair and bruised all over, bullies her way into attending the funeral. An accident they say. A horrible accident. A horrible sinking feeling makes her not so certain. She of course, knows what the people of this town are like. How they treated people like them. Nellie keeps her head high and face closed. None of these people had cared about Steve. She herself had done pitifully little for him. She had just been so afraid that close contact between them would only make things worse. She clenches her fist tightly and lets few tears out unashamedly. These people would try to bury the truth of Steve here. Nellie would make certain they failed. When the ceremony is over and people begin to move away, she places a tiny little pride flag beside his headstone before she allows herself to be wheeled away.

Steve Harrington’s parents sit stone faced through most of the ceremony. The boy’s father sheds some tears when the casket is finally lowered into the ground. The boy’s mother leaves without a word. She was not seen around town again, apparently having gone straight home, packed her bags, dumped divorce papers on the kitchen table, and walked out the door. A ‘For Sale’ sign appears in front of the old Harrington home shortly after.

…

They are lying at the bottom of a drained swimming pool. The sky above them is so bright it burns Steve’s eyes. It is so warm. The burning heat of the sun beams down on him and he’d forgotten what it felt like until that moment.

In wet clothes they climb the pool ladder and stand in the backyard. The house stands quietly before them. Neither of them want to get anywhere close to it now that they have escaped. The walk around the side instead and Steve marvels at the feel of grass beneath his toes.

“What now?” Steve wonders quietly, afraid he might suddenly wake up.

Beside him Billy laughs, “Fuck if I know.” But he holds out his hand as if to say _‘shall we go find out?’_

Barefoot and still sopping wet, they walk together down the road.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you everyone so much for reading and for all your comments and Kudos's! I really, really appreciate every one of you. Happy Halloween.


End file.
